The Federal Government has pledged another $2.3 million for BlueScope Steel, this time to support the company's development of a new solar roofing system.
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The company is working on a $5 million prototype that marries its steel roofing with thin-film solar panels from overseas, creating a sleeker, more efficient roof profile for use on new buildings.
Called a building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) system, the prototype would bring BlueScope a step closer to the "steel manufacturing Nirvana" - still up to 10 years away - where a solar component could be coated on like paint.
At Port Kembla yesterday, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the Government's contribution was aimed at maintaining BlueScope's operation on the South Coast, creating new markets in Australia and overseas, and reducing the cost of rolling out clean energy solar power.
"This is not about handouts," he said. "[BlueScope] had to prove a capacity to make a breakthrough in technology. If you can attach a clean energy [component] to traditional roofing steel then you're creating a new product. We think it will assist in making Australia a leader of this type of technology."
BlueScope's general manager of sales and marketing, Andrew Garey, said the company hoped to take the product to market within 12 months.
He estimated the next generation of photovoltaics - involving factory-applied paint systems - was five to 10 years from becoming reality. "This is absolutely the nirvana of steel manufacturing," he said. "It would be fantastic for us, fantastic for manufacturing in Australia."
BlueScope has received $100 million from the Federal Government under the steel assistance package announced last year, and another $80 million is pledged.
The latest funding - from the $126 million Emerging Renewables Program - acknowledges the green credentials of BlueScope's BIPV bid and its breakthrough potential, but there are no guarantees the resulting system will create manufacturing jobs in the Illawarra.
Mr Ferguson said any resulting manufacturing jobs could be "potentially here on the South Coast but also internationally, because BlueScope is an international company operating in places such as China".
He said he was confident the prototype could be easily scaled up to operational stage and become a stand-alone technology capable of contributing to existing grid facilities.
