The machines were about to be sold as scrap metal when Rombout Swanborn stepped in to save a factory that might hold the key to Australia’s hopes of becoming an ultra-low-cost solar manufacturer and breaking China’s stranglehold on the industry.

Swedish renewable energy giant Vattenfall had just paid $US13.3 billion for Dutch company Nuon in 2009 and saw no merit in continuing with Nuon’s experimental factory making super slim, flexible solar panels in the Dutch city of Arnhem.