Antinuclear

Australia’s lost opportunities in solar power

the big dish was by-passed in the Federal Government’s Solar Flagships program. The claim that it was not “commercially ready” is directly contradicted by the creation of the Solar Oasis consortium that is now building a 40 MW big dish solar power generator at Whyalla, in South Australia.

Solar lessons from Korea, Daily Mercury, John Mathews | 14th April 2012 “……. [Korea]  is streamlining investment into the new green sectors, that so far run to financing of nearly $50 billion. That’s billion, not million – compared with Australia’s much-touted Solar Flagship program which is funded at the level of millions.

………the Korean approach will be – mark my words – to turn the solar dish concept into a central component of their new green growth industrial strategy. They will be expected to acquire rights to the technology, and then adapt it through the intervention of Hyundai or LG or Samsung (the Korean innovation champions). They will mass produce the dishes in the thousands and then promote use of the technology throughout the world, providing all the components and materials from Korean sources.

The contrast with our approach in Australia could not be more stark. So far, we have seen two major solar technologies starved of funds and shipped offshore. There was thin-film solar photovoltaic technology, developed at the University of NSW under Professor Martin Green, that became a political football and a casualty of NSW state politics (when Bob Carr was premier). It was eventually sold off to Germany.

Along the way a young Chinese PhD student picked up the rudiments of
the technology and built his own company in Wuxi, China. This has now
grown into Suntech Power, the world’s largest producer of solar PV
panels, and has made Dr Zhengrong Shi one of the richest men in China.

The other was a CSP technology utilising an array of Fresnel mirrors
tracking the sun in highly efficient form, developed by Sydney
University’s Professor David Mills. Again he could not get funding and
moved to California where he set up Ausra, a very successful solar
power generating company (and now on-sold to French nuclear giant
Areva).

Now Australia has a third breakthrough solar technology, this time in
the form of a big dish solar reflector that can focus the sun’s rays
and concentrate them 2000 times. It creates industrial scale
temperatures over 1000 degrees centigrade in a molten salt fluid held
under pressure, and generates electric power by turning water into
steam through heat exchange with the molten salts.

The Solar Thermal research group at ANU in Canberra developed the
concept; they built the first prototype; and now they have built a
second generation big dish that is the world’s largest such device and
a contender to be one of the world’s most important renewable energy
candidates. It could be deployed in deserts as very large-scale clean
power producer connected to the grid. In industrial areas it could
generate very high temperatures capable of fusing glass, metal – and
in building future big dish power systems, so creating a totally
renewable energy powered industrial system. When used with molten
salts – as in WizardEnergy’s SUMO model – it can generate power 24
hours a day, thus overcoming the principal objection to scaling up
solar power systems.

But the big dish was by-passed in the Federal Government’s Solar Flagships program. The claim that it was not “commercially ready” is directly contradicted by the creation of the Solar Oasis consortium that is now building a 40 MW big dish solar power generator at Whyalla, in South Australia.

Federal Government support has been minimal. You won’t find a mention
of the big dish in a search of the Department of Energy, Industry and
Resources website more recent than 2010. The breakthrough technology
is routinely ignored in speeches from government ministers. A company
was formed years ago to license the ANU technology and is possibly
looking to sell this Australian treasure overseas to the highest
bidder. The most recent Federal Government grant, to help the Whyalla
Solar Oasis project get started, is limited to $60 million – as
compared to the billions that would be made available elsewhere to
drive such a promising new venture.
http://www.dailymercury.com.au/story/2012/04/14/solar-lessons-korea/

April 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, solar | solar