The solar cells reached a production capacity last year of 0.5 gigawatts, worth more than $US1billion a year.

It is enough to power 300,000 average homes that typically have eight solar panels on them for at least 25 years.

Pluto technology, as it is patented, was developed by Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham at the University of New South Wales ARC Photovoltaics Centre for Excellence and in close collaboration with the world’s largest solar cell manufacturer, Suntech-Power.

“We recently broke through the 20 per cent target for solar cell efficiency, which many experts thought was impossible and we’ve significantly lowered the costs compared to other technologies,” Green says.

Green believes this success was earned through deep collaboration with Australian company Suntech-Power.

“We brought our photovoltaic know-how together with their manufacturing expertise, which used new tools and processes to create solar cells ten times the size of our lab-scale devices.”

Suntech-Power’s expertise was important for lowering the costs of the cells by using cheaper processing methods, like laser patterning and replacing expensive silver and titanium parts.

“Without this collaboration and its funding through the Australian Solar Institute, Pluto would have remained a lab prototype rather than a commercial reality,” says Wenham.

“Pluto is rapidly increasing its market share, with many companies around the world looking to replace their existing 30-year-old production technologies.”

International studies predict the present $100 billion a year photovoltaic industry will grow to well in excess of a trillion dollars a year as it becomes the major supplier of the world’s electrical energy needs.

This article first appeared in BEN-Global