Earth Garden: Large Scale Solar Day and Night

Renewable Energy is the fastest growing power source around the world, and already generates baseload electricity at utility scales. Large-scale solar thermal plants with heat storage are able to dispatch power whether or not the sun is shining, and to make handsome profits during demand peaks. Wind power is being installed at scales that dwarf Australian grid requirements. These and other clean energy technologies are replacing coal on modern energy grids. While Australia continues to throw money at nineteenth-century technologies, Spain, China, the USA and others are charging ahead with zero-emissions power generation, and creating export markets as they go.

Spain has a level of electricity consumption equivalent to Australia’s, though their population is about twice ours. Like Australia, Spain is blessed with strong, consistent sunshine, and they use this asset to ensure energy security. They have already built 24-hour baseload solar plants, using molten salt to store heat, which is then used to create steam and turn turbines. Starting with Andasol 1, a 50MW plant, they have now completed two more similar projects. Over 1,800MW of projects are currently under construction and the government just approved another 2,440MW for their feed-in tariff scheme for construction over the next 3 years.

The Gemasolar project is the shining light of the Spanish baseload solar boom. This solar thermal plant has created 1500 jobs, and will operate at 60 – 100% of maximum turbine output for up to 90% of the hours each year. Very low maintenance shutdown requirements allow this efficiency, far greater than coal-fired power generators in NSW. When the turbine is idle, heat is bled off the "cold" 290-degree salt storage tank to keep the turbine seals warm, allowing fast starting as seen in the best hydro dams and gas plants. This capacity for both baseload and fast-start ‘dispatchable’ power generation places the Gemasolar plant among the highest value electricity plants, a fact not lost on investors.

This solar generation capacity is in addition to the Spanish wind power program. Wind turbines currently provide 11% of Spain’s electricity demand, and this will more than double to 25% by 2020. Another 6,000MW of wind is approved for installation in just the next 3 years. That’s just shy of three Bayswater – sized power plants, with all the jobs but zero emissions. Spain is phasing out both coal and nuclear, and the companies that built the nuclear plants have now re-tooled to build solar thermal plants with heat storage. These companies didn't want to own the nuclear plants they built, but have set up investment vehicles to own solar thermal plants.

Compared to the ten years it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running, solar thermal plants with 24-hour baseload generating capacity now have construction times as short as nine months. This means such projects are not exposed to same political, industrial and financial risks as nuclear plants. Envisaging a lucrative future market for their solar infrastructure, expertise and experience, the Spanish anticipate a healthy return on any subsidies for these technologies.

In China, solar hot water and photovoltaic (PV) panels have had massive commercial success. Maintenance-free evacuated tube solar hot water systems were developed here in Australia. These are cheap – each tube wholesales for less than five dollars, and a system for a family costs less than $A500. Over 50 million Chinese households today enjoy unlimited, free hot water from such systems.  China produces solar PV panels on a massive scale, and is the leading manufacturer of this technology for domestic rooftops. This triumph also owes much to Australian innovation, and to Australian governments’ failure to support the industry on home soil. The University of NSW solar PV team is the world leader in its field, and holds the global efficiency record for ordinary silicon cells. Much of the technology in China, particularly from leading company Suntech, leverages this Australian innovation.

The Chinese were also ahead of the game when the global financial crisis hit. Their government moved quickly to arrange for government buildings to purchase surplus industrial output. This meant that the billions of dollars Chinese companies had invested in tooling up and scaling up PV plants were not wasted when demand suddenly declined. This is in stark contrast with the situation in Australia. Melbourne-based Solar Systems has proven commercial success in displacing diesel in diesel/solar hybrid power generation for remote aboriginal communities. Also a leader in its field, Solar Systems was unable to generate operational revenue and was forced into administration in August. By demonstrating Chinese-style foresight, the Rudd Government could quickly have created a pipeline of projects for remote area power systems dependent on diesel. This would have been a responsible use of stimulus funds, and assured the company remained viable and ready for the post-GFC boom.

Chinese wind power blows us away too. 30,000MW of wind power were planned to come online by 2020, but this target will now be met in early 2010. On the back of that success, China is now planning for 150,000MW of wind power by 2020, and again it is likely that this will be achieved much earlier.  Within the 150,000MW wind power target is their "Three Gorges of Wind" project. Named after the world's biggest engineering project, the Three Gorges dam, it will produce 70,000MW at seven large sites. The project will produce twice as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam, but cost half as much. The Three Gorges of Wind alone will produce about the same amount of electricity as the National Electricity grid on Australia’s eastern seaboard.

Denmark currently obtains 20% of its electricity from wind, and this will increase to 50% by 2025. Wind turbines from the 1980s will be replaced with new models that are thirty times larger and much more efficient in a wide variety of wind conditions. In reaching 50% wind power penetration, they will discard less than 7% of their total annual wind generation due to overcapacity when strong winds coincide with low demand periods. NSW alone is 19 times larger than Denmark, with an approximately equal population and about as much wind in any given place. Our national electricity grid extends from Tasmania and SA to far North Queensland. With such a massive resource over a vast area, wind power can make a large contribution to Australian energy security. Australia continues to rely on wasteful nineteenth century technology. In periods of low demand, such as in the dead of night, our antiquated coal-fired power stations throw energy away by blowing steam.

In Germany, policy settings have boosted domestic renewable energy sales and provided the environment for a high-tech manufacturing industry. This is despite the fact that, under often-grey northern skies, PV panels installed in Germany may produce 50-65% less energy over their lifetime than equivalent panels in Australia. German households and businesses will add up to three gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic generation by the end of this year, bringing the national total to eight GW. That’s a massive 86% of the entire Hunter Valley generating capacity.

Planning authorities in the USA are also swamped with plans for wind and solar thermal power installations. Over 97,000MW of solar thermal projects are currently before the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for approval. On the front foot with baseload solar thermal plants in the South Western USA, the BLM is performing a fast track study to approve over 100,000MW of right of way sites (degraded government lands) for solar thermal plants. There go another 38 Bayswater equivalents. An underdeveloped grid is the main obstacle to the expansion of wind power in the US, but president Obama has announced a huge modernisation plan.
The global financial crisis caused hold-ups with project finance, but with Federal stimulus now behind many projects, thousands of megawatts of solar thermal with storage will break ground this year. Projects include a massive complex in Nevada by Spanish multinational Abengoa and another in California by Israeli constructor BrightSource Energy. These companies are now exporting their expertise, a far more valuable commodity than coal. With quick action now, Australia could develop a local solar thermal industry and join this lucrative international market.
Nor is clean electricity generation the exclusive domain of start-ups and die-hard lefties. Sandia Labs, a Lockheed Martin company, and Apollo Space Rocket builder UTC/Solar Reserve expect to build ten, 100MW plants across the USA. These solar plants will dispatch electricity around the clock thanks to work carried out by US Department of Energy laboratories that, amongst other things, do nuclear weapons research.

Those who perpetuate the myth that renewable energy can’t satisfy our electricity demands have an interest in long-established, emissions-intensive industries. These largely foreign-owned companies would prefer to see our energy keep coming from the same old dirty sources. The Rudd government seems more than happy to encourage this approach, signing up to the coalition’s version of the emissions trading scheme to offer $7 billion of compensation to coal-fired electricity generators, while stonewalling on renewables. This strategy, like the coalition’s business-as-usual outlook, ignores the opportunities for jobs, export earnings, energy security and zero-emissions electricity on offer in the renewable sector. With our advantages in sunshine, wind and expertise, Australia should move quickly to make up for lost time, and join the frontrunners in clean energy. Failure to act means Australians will remain stuck in the coal pit while the world prospers from the renewable energy boom.