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5B’s phenomenal impact
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5B ACCELERATES CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION
IT IS A MILD SUMMER MORNING just outside
Canberra and half a dozen parliamentarians are picking their way between densely packed 5B Maverick solar arrays at Bungendore’s renewable power facility.
They are discussing the speed, safety, and operational efficiency of 5B’s innovative technology compared with the fixed-tilt solar system in the neighbouring paddock.
Climate change is a chief concern among their constituents. The global decarbonisation push is driving a 50-fold increase in installed solar, from roughly 900 gigawatts to at least 40 terawatts by 2050. And they are pinning Australia’s hopes of being a clean energy superpower on fast growing dynamos like 5B.
Some 14,000 kilometres away in Panama, a unique design feature of 5B’s technology is paying dividends at the seaport city of Colon where a crew is folding up 10 of 62 5B Maverick solar arrays, initially deployed in 2020, to make way for an expansion of a gas plant.
The excitement among 5B’s engineers, its deployment partner, and the client on site is palpable. It is the first redeployment of 5B Mavericks from one commercial site to another. The ability to easily shift the location of a solar farm within days and continue to sweat the assets is a game changer. It makes solar more commercially viable for customers with short and medium-term needs, under 10 years. Roughly 10 per cent of 5B’s market share comes from projects that need solar on a five to 10 year basis.
The redeployment aspect also cracks open new business models for off-grid power generation and service suppliers. The scramble among miners and oil and gas producers to cut embedded emissions in their supply chains is driving an extraordinary level of activity. And 5B has just delivered them an edge, removing the risk of stranded assets while allowing for end of life recycling.
Disruptive innovation
Founded in 2013, 5B is the brainchild of solar engineers Chris McGrath and Eden Tehan. It was created with a singular purpose – to solve the problems they encountered working together on Australia’s first large-scale solar projects.
The pair were part of a small army of workers traversing hot and hostile construction sites carrying and installing solar modules by hand. It occurred to them that if one were to build a large-scale array from scratch on a blank sheet of paper, with no preconceptions, it would look very different.
They set about completely redesigning where and how solar farm infrastructure is made. By prefabricating an accordionstyle solar array, they succeeded in moving the time, cost and risk from the field into a controlled factory environment, and by doing so increased safety.
The result is a folding solar farm that can be deployed by machine up to ten times faster, using a small crew. 5B Maverick arrays arrive on site fully built, pre-wired and ready to plugand-play.
Few places highlight the extent to which 5B has recalibrated conventional solar deployment better than Chile’s Aconcagua Valley. On a site accessible only by a precarious single lane road, transporting anything extra in and out can cause severe cost blowouts. This includes packaging waste on solar modules. Skilled workers are scarce in the region and accommodation for them is limited. In environments like these, 5B is completely redefining the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) for solar which measures the lifetime cost of building and operating a power plant.
The need for speed
The name 5B is a nod to the five billion years of sunshine left. But it also belies a challenge to use it more wisely. It calls for creative collaboration across the entire energy sector.
“To build 50 times the amount of solar we currently have requires building individual
...it belies a challenge to use it more wisely. ...it belies a challenge to use it more wisely.
– CHRIS McGRATH
projects faster, but also ramping up the global solar industry by a huge magnitude,” 5B cofounder and chief executive Chris McGrath says. “Speed is central to the solar industry’s ability to solve climate change at a very fundamental level.” 5B’s high-speed cycles of innovation are already delivering a step change in the logistics, safety, speed of deployment, and operational efficiency of solar farms globally.
A $33 million technology program, kicked off this year with the help of $14 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, will up the ante. Advanced manufacturing and roboticised deployment are innovations these funds will help deliver.
Significantly, 5B is transforming the way renewable energy, and solar in particular, is built on a global scale, not just through a singular technology but by tackling inefficiencies across the entire value chain.
As the preferred solar technology supplier to Sun Cable’s proposed Australia–Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink), 5B is “running the trip wires” on fortifying a supply chain to produce, ship and deploy solar on a scale never previously attempted. The project – slated to start selling solar power to Singapore in 2027 – encompasses the world’s largest solar plant at up to 20 gigawatts, situated in the Northern Territory.
“Sun Cable is a really illuminating example of where the system starts to stretch and break when you turn the dial up that much,” McGrath says.
Since its first commercial deployment in 2017, 5B has completed 56 projects with over 33MWp capacity alongside the biggest utility scale players globally.
Two years ago, its innovative approach caught the eye of Fortune 500 energy juggernaut AES, now one of 5B’s largest strategic investors.
AES’ investment marked a significant turning point for 5B, bringing not just an influx of cash to fuel growth but also a critical validation of its technology, a utility grade customer, plus an experienced global player to provide strategic support and guidance.
What’s next
This provided a springboard to enter three new markets – the United States, Chile and India – last year. “It was probably the worst year of the decade you could choose to expand internationally but we did it through sheer stubbornness and grit,” McGrath says.
5B’s international expansion is informed by a careful assessment of where the most solar projects will be built that play to its strengths in order to position itself in the path of growth. www.5B.com.au An extended version of this article can be found on the Smart Energy Council website, www.smartenergy.org.au
