The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing up to $32.3 million to establish solar robotics manufacturing facilities in Melbourne and Brisbane, supporting faster, safer and more efficient construction of large-scale solar farms across Australia.
Funded under Round 2 of ARENA’s Solar Sunshot Program, the projects will manufacture two complementary technologies in Australia; robots that install solar panels and autonomous systems that drive foundation piles.
The new facilities in Victoria and Queensland will help improve productivity, reduce construction costs and ease workforce constraints as large-scale solar deployment grows, supporting Australia’s goal of ultra low-cost solar.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said these projects will advance the development of technologies previously demonstrated in Australian conditions into locally manufactured products that can be deployed at scale.
“Installing foundations and placing panels are two of the most labour-intensive parts of solar farm construction. It’s hard work in the hot sun,” Mr Miller said.
“Australia needs to install large volumes of solar quickly and cost-effectively. Local manufacturing and automation can improve the way solar farms are built by reducing construction costs and making installation faster, safer and more efficient; an important part of ARENA’s ultra low-cost solar vision.
“Manufacturing these technologies in Australia will help to strengthen local supply chains, develop specialist skills and give solar projects better access to advanced construction equipment when and where it is needed.”
ARENA is providing up to $17.8 million to Luminous Robotics to establish a Melbourne manufacturing facility for its autonomous solar panel installation robots, called LUMIs. The facility is expected to support the manufacture and deployment of around 100 LUMI robots by 2029, helping automate solar panel installation on large-scale solar farms.
Luminous Robotics came through ARENA’s 2024 Solar Challenge, an initiative designed to supercharge innovation and crowdsource ideas from across the world on how to reduce the cost of large-scale solar.
ARENA supported demonstrations of LUMI robots at solar farms in Victoria and New South Wales, where the technology was tested under Australian construction and environmental conditions. The new funding will enable moving the technology from field demonstration to industrial-scale manufacturing in Australia.
“We’ve proven LUMI on real solar farms in Australia, in the heat and dust, doing some of the hardest work on site. With ARENA’s support, the next step is to turn that into scale,” Tenzin Crouch, General Manager, Luminous Robotics Australia said.
“Building a production line in Melbourne, delivering our first hundred robots, and then growing from there. If Australia is going to build renewable energy at the scale and speed we need, robotics will have an important role to play and we are building it.”
Built Robotics Australia will receive up to $14.5 million to establish a Brisbane manufacturing hub and operations centre for autonomous piling systems used in utility-scale solar construction. The facility will manufacture and deploy 12 robotic piling systems, helping automate one of the most labour-intensive stages of solar farm construction.
The project builds on previous ARENA-supported deployments of Built Robotics’ autonomous piling technology in Australia, establishing domestic capability to manufacture, integrate and test piling systems for solar projects.
“Australia has shown the world that construction robotics and physical AI work in the field. Now we’re going to build that technology here,” Paul Kelly, Vice President of Business Development, Built Robotics, said.
“Our Brisbane hub will make Queensland a home for autonomous solar construction, creating skilled local jobs and a supply chain that serves projects in Australia, building on nearly a decade of work we’ve done here.”
Together, the projects will build Australian manufacturing capability at two critical stages of solar farm construction. By moving proven robotics into larger-scale production and deployment, they can help create a domestic equipment supply chain for Australia’s growing large-scale solar industry.
About Solar Sunshot
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is delivering the $850 million Solar Sunshot Program to support innovation in Australia’s solar PV manufacturing industry. Solar Sunshot was announced by the Australian Government in March 2024 and aims to uncover and support innovation to drive scale and diversity in a critical industry.
Australia benefits from strong renewable energy potential, high-quality, abundant raw materials and a long track record of excellence in research and development. Solar Sunshot aims to harness these advantages so that Australia can strengthen and diversify its supply chains and create economic opportunities.
