Up the ante on ambition: $250 million Solar Sunshot Round 3 now open

Targeting equipment, manufacturing processes and deployment technologies, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has opened the $250 million (USD 174 million) Solar Sunshot Round 3 inviting Australian and international companies with commercially mature technologies to apply.

Round 3 is focused on the commercial-scale manufacture of solar balance of plant and deployment technologies, which could include racking and tracking systems, robotics, advanced automation, prefabrication and other technologies, and which must contribute to achieving ARENA’s ultra low-cost solar (ULCS) goals, such as the 30-30-30 target to achieve 30% module efficiency at an installed cost of 30 cents per watt by 2030.

ARENA General Manager Solar Dan Sturrock told pv magazine Round 3 signals Australia is open for business with the world’s best solar innovators that want opportunities to develop or manufacture products at scale in Australia. 

“We think the next decade is a really exciting time to bring the best innovation from around the world here to Australia and show those products can be produced at scale to drive down the costs and increase the efficiency of how we build large-scale solar in Australia,” Sturrock said.

“We’re coming out now with Round 3 to be able to extend the ambition already demonstrated through Rounds 1 and 2. Round 2 has been running for about 12 months and we’ve got a couple of projects we’ve been able to announce, plus a strong pipeline of other projects coming through that round, and we expect to fully allocate the $150 million that we made available.”

Sturrock said with SunShot Solar Round 3 ARENA is more ambitious, wanting to work with a broader range of companies but also asking those companies to be equally ambitious with their ability to go larger at scale.

“Not just to manufacture product but to also really focus on product development, because when you think about recent Solar Sunshot Round 2 recipients, Built Robotics and Luminous Robotics, most of the product development happens in the US at the moment, so there’s an opportunity to bring product development expertise to Australia and really think about what’s the right product for this market,” Sturrock said.

Projects and products under Round 3 must also deliver value to the end user the builds or owns utility-scale solar farms.  

“We expect these projects to reduce the cost of solar farms, and it’s also about product quality, so if you’re building a quality product hopefully it’s lower cost but overall we expect these technologies to lower costs in the long term as we build out 10 GW of large-scale solar a year, rather than the current 5 GW.”

“We obviously look at value for money to the taxpayer, ultimately. Applicants do need to bring their own private investment. We generally expect in all of these projects that we’re not funding more than 50% of the total project cost,” Sturrock said.

“Sometimes a project is looking for a capital subsidy to reduce the cost of building a factory and sometimes they’re looking for a production subsidy to make their first batch of whatever the product is, to be cost effective and be able to break into the market at scale.”

“We’re hoping once established successful applicants are not only build a strong business in Australia but there’s absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t then be able to export those products or services to other markets in the region, whether that’s New Zealand, South East Asia, or further afield,” Sturrock said.

“When you look through the short term challenges in lots of different areas, we’re very optimistic that in 10 years’ time the solar industry will have grown massively and there’ll be really big changes in the way we build and operate solar farms in Australia with all the new technologies that are available,” Sturrock said.

Expressions of interest for Solar Sunshot Round 3 open on 2 November 2026.

Solar Sunshot Round 2

ARENA announced on 13 October 2026 Round 2 successful applicants US-based Built Robotics and Luminous Robotics, respectively receiving grants of $14.5 million and $17.8 million to establish new manufacturing facilities.

“Luminous Robotics has only been around for about three years, but they came to us early and received a small amount of funding and then saw a great opportunity to come in and scale up their business in Australia,” Sturrock said.

“They’re a really exciting company, high growth, big ambitions and now looking to manufacture their LUMI robots at scale in Melbourne, and they’re a great example, because we worked with them at the smaller scale when they demonstrated the robots at Goorambat and Culcairn solar farms in the last year or so.”

ARENA also worked with Californian start-up Built Robotics when they came to Australia to test their product.

“Like Luminous they are now seeing a great opportunity to scale up their piling robots in Brisbane and are building a large facility there where they’ve currently just got a small workshop,” Sturrock said.

Solar Sunshot Round 1

Applications for the $50 million Round 1B for upstream solar manufacturing feasibility studies and front end engineering and design (FEED) has been extended to 12 November 2026.

“We’re extending Round 1B to give an opportunity to both new entrants to come to us but also for companies to apply for second stage support. It is a bit of a ‘watch this space’, because we really need to come to an understanding of what does success look like in that upstream space because it is a difficult one and one that is rapidly evolving based on what is going on in the US and China, in particular, because a lot of these businesses will rely on a large buyer being willing to pay a non-China premium,” Sturrock said.

Rounds 1 and 2 funded projects include South Australian solar panel manufacturer Tindo Solar, Sydney-based solar technology company 5B and China-headquartered Sunman, founded by solar pioneer and University of New South Wales (UNSW) alumnus Dr Zhengrong Shi, which is building a 500 MW per annum solar module manufacturing facility in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales (NSW) backed by $171 million in federal and state government funding.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is delivering the $850 million Solar Sunshot program, launched in March 2024, to support innovation in Australia’s solar PV manufacturing industry.