Australia sets up $650m fund for domestic solar panel manufacturing

SYDNEY -- Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a fund totaling 1 billion Australian dollars ($650 million) for building solar panels domestically, part of the country's efforts to benefit from the global transition to clean energy and reduce its reliance on China.

Albanese unveiled the Solar Sunshot program at a news conference at the site of a recently closed coal plant in New South Wales state's Hunter Valley, a heartland of the country's 20th-century fossil-fuel power industry.