Antinuclear

On the sun-baked edge of the outback city, 700 miles west of Sydney, a solar farm the size of London’s Hyde Park shimmers like an oasis – its panels sending enough electricity to the national grid to power 17,000 homes a year.

Combined with a sister plant, the AGL Energy and First Solar project is the largest of its type in the southern hemisphere. Clean energy advocates are counting on the 140-hectare development to make Broken Hill, which at one time boasted the world’s most successful silver mine, a trailblazer once again.

“It’s giving birth to the large-scale solar industry in Australia,” said Adam Mackett, AGL’s project manager, as he strolled among the 678,000 solar panels under a cloudless blue sky.

“Hopefully, from Broken Hill’s point of view, they’ll see this as the start of something bigger.”

Australia gets more solar radiation per square meter than any other continent. Yet while the nation leads the world in installing rooftop solar panels, it trails 19 countries from Bulgaria to Ukraine in producing the power at solar farms.

Solar accounted for about 2 percent of Australia’s electricity generation last year, according to the Clean Energy Council, an industry group in Melbourne. Fossil fuels, by contrast, made up almost 87 percent of the mix, reflecting the nation’s reliance on mining………

The $440 million solar farms in Broken Hill and Nyngan, about 590 kilometers east, received $232 million in grants from the New South Wales state and federal governments, and new ventures are likely to need their support. The Australian government has committed $350 million more for utility-scale solar projects and is reviewing applications for funding.

‘Good for Humanity’

Companies such as First Solar, the largest US solar manufacturer, are keen to develop more plants in Australia, said Jack Curtis, its Asia-Pacific manager. The industry is looking for assurance that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is more climate-friendly than his predecessor, Tony Abbott, who said coal was “good for humanity.”

Australia’s climate policies have been criticised for not going far enough. The government’s commitment to cut carbon emissions by 2030 is projected to leave the country as the highest per-capita polluter among Group of 20 nations after Saudi Arabia, according to the Climate Institute, a Sydney-based non-profit organisation. Solar is among the sources that could help……… http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/how-an-australian-mining-town-became-a-solar-power-trailblazer-20151221-glsks3.html