Director of the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Professor Andrew Blakers this week unveiled the 'Sliver Cell', which uses just one tenth of the costly silicon used in conventional solar panels while matching power, performance and efficiency.

"A solar panel using Sliver Cell technology needs the equivalent of two silicon wafers to convert sunlight to 140 watts of power. By comparison, a conventional solar panel needs about 60 silicon wafers to achieve this performance," said Professor Blakers.

"By dramatically reducing the amount of expensive pure silicon, the largest cost in solar panels today, this new technology represents a major advance in solar power technology."

Origin Energy's executive general manager, Generation, Andrew Stock, said his company has worked with the centre for several years and invested more than $6 million in research in order to discover a way to harness the sun's power at much lower cost.

"Due to the economy and flexibility of Sliver Cells, we believe this technology will play an important role in the future wide-spread adoption of solar power," he said.

Origin said the unique attributes of Sliver Cell technology could see many applications in addition to conventional rooftop and off-grid uses. These included transparent Sliver Cell panes to replace building windows and cladding; flexible, roll-up solar panels; high-voltage solar panels, and solar powered aircraft, satellite and surveillance systems.