Australia’s bid to store the power of the sun
An isolated Australian mining community has been selected as the site for a A$600 million ($641m) energy project, incorporating technology that allows heat from the sun to be stored for as long as 16 hours.
Mount Isa in northern Queensland is home to fewer than 20,000 people, but is an important service hub for the region’s silver, lead, zinc and copper mining industry. Developer Vast Solar is targeting the business of those resource operations with a cleaner, cheaper alternative to the natural gas that currently powers the region.
“After the Atacama Desert, this is the second-best place on the planet to build a solar thermal plant,” says Vast Solar chief executive Craig Wood, citing the region’s year-round hot, dry conditions.
The company’s technology uses mirrors and receiving towers to gather and store the sun’s energy. Heat is transferred using liquid sodium, which the company says offers improved control, higher efficiency and lower risk than other solar thermal solutions.
The 50 megawatt Mount Isa plant will run on traditional solar power, backed by battery storage and gas turbines, during the day, with the solar thermal-generated power to be used at night to ensure it can operate around the clock. It will provide enough electricity to supply a regional town in Queensland, or a large resources project.
The facility is intended to complement the A$1.5 billion CopperString 2.0 project, which will connect the region to the national electricity network via as much as 1000km of new transmission line.
Once in place, the link will also open up a route to urban coastal markets for the Mount Isa site and potentially even bigger solar thermal operations, Wood says.
After the Atacama Desert, [Mt Isa] is the second-best place on the planet to build a solar thermal plant.
Vast Solar has run a successful pilot project at Jemalong in New South Wales since 2018, but solar thermal has had a chequered history. Technical issues beset early efforts to scale up the technology in the US, while a major project in South Australia collapsed last year after the developer failed to secure financing.
Wood says he hopes to reach financial close on the project around the middle of next year, and start construction on the two-year build shortly after.
He says he is in talks with the government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility on potential funding, and also expects interest from Australian commercial banks.
“On the equity side, we’re already having conversations with a number of parties from all round the world,” Wood says. “There are people who realise the need for dispatchable renewable energy that’s low cost.”
Vast Solar may help shore up confidence in the technology after rival SolarReserve failed to arrange financing for its A$650m Aurora Solar Energy project in South Australia. That project was seen as adding a crucial new supply to the state’s troubled grid amid global efforts to transition to cleaner power. California-based SolarReserve did not respond to a request for comment.
Thermal solar technology’s attraction lies in firming up solar generation — using thermal storage to keep the power flowing when the sun isn’t shining. However, operational issues have cast doubt on its reliability.
Meanwhile, an advocacy group is claiming that bolstering the adoption of renewable energy and other policies aimed at tackling climate change could add about 76,000 jobs in Australia over three years.
Public investment in sectors including utility-scale clean energy projects, ecosystem restoration and the expansion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure could help lift employment in communities affected by bush fires and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Climate Council said this week..
“The Clean Jobs Plan is unique because of the speed at which it can get people back to work,” said the council’s chief executive, Amanda McKenzie. “It puts us on a practical, jobs-rich path and focuses on areas most in need.”
While Australia posted its largest monthly jobs gain on record in June, adding about 210,000 jobs as large parts of the economy reopened from Covid-19-related lockdowns, the unemployment rate is now at a 22-year high of 7.4 per cent.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has called for a “gas-fired” economic recovery, signalling a preference for supporting natural gas expansion projects rather than focusing exclusively on new solar and wind power.
The Climate Council proposals follow a plan set out last month by Beyond Zero Emissions, a cleanenergy lobby group, to create as many as 1 million jobs.
Beyond Zero Emissions believes that as many as 150,000 jobs could be created in building solar and wind capacity as well as transmission infrastructure, 250,000 opportunities in modernising and expanding manufacturing and 300,000 to create 3 million “Zero Energy Bill” buildings.
Craig Wood, chief executive, Vast Solar