The Western Times: Solar Opportunity

The Western Times report:

WESTERN Queensland has been touted as one of the best locations in the country for the expansion of Australia’s solar industry.  A report by climate change group, Beyond Zero Emissions, found Charleville, along with Roma and Longreach, was an ideal site to establish a solar thermal power plant.

The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100% renewable energy within 10 years.

The proposed sites were chosen based on three criteria: their relatively high solar incidence and daily sunlight hours, low winter to summer solar resource ratios and proximity to load centres to connect the solar plants to existing population centres.

Charleville scored equal highest for its high level of solar incidence. Beyond Zero Emissions strategic director Mark Ogge said solar could be a hugely successful industry for western Queensland. “We balanced the quality of the solar resource against the existing grid and demand for electricity,” he said. “Charleville measured up in terms of having a great solar resource.” Mr Ogge said a solar thermal power plant would provide a real economic boom for the region. “These plants employ about 750 permanent workers with ongoing fulltime maintenance jobs,” he said.

“It’s not like mining with fly-in and fly-out. These workers would be based in the community. “Solar injects a huge amount of economic growth without downsides of extractive industries at the moment.” Solar thermal power plants use mirrors to collect solar energy during the day. New plants can store the energy as heat in insulated moltensalt storage tanks. The heat can be drawn out as necessary, day and night, to boil steam and drive a steam turbine. The resulting electricity can replace baseload power currently generated by burning coal or gas. Mr Ogge said Australia had fallen behind with the technology despite having some of the best solar resource in the world.

“They’re building 50 of these plants in Spain and the solar resource in Queensland is far better so you would get more output per power plant,” he said.

“It’s crazy that we don’t have these power plants here.” Federal LNP Member for Maranoa Bruce Scott said Beyond Zero Emission’s proposal for Charleville had enormous potential.

“I’m very supportive of alternative energy sources,” he said. “We have plenty of solar resource in western Queensland and we should be tapping into that. “Australia should be a leading nation when it comes to solar technology.” However Mr Scott said he had concerns about the high costs associated with solar power.

“Solar is more expensive to establish than baseload coal-fired power stations so consumers will pay more,” he said. “We have to look at opportunities to reduce carbon emissions and I think we’ll get to the situation where solar is competitive, but we haven’t been able to get the price lower than it is.”

Mr Ogge said despite the initial building costs, solar energy was still the best option for consumers. “They cost more at start, but solar plants allow us to lock in electricity prices,” he said. “There’s no further cost for the fuel resource throughout their lifetime.

“We can keep doing what we’re doing now, but when the gas industry takes off local gas prices will be linked to international prices. “It’s $12 per gigajoule (GJ) world wide at the moment and it’s only $3 per GJ in Australia.

“With our gas prices linked to the international market we’ll start getting the volatility we get at the petrol pump at the light switch.” Mr Ogge said it was a fork in the road for Australia’s energy production. “Do we go down the gas road and risk volatility in prices or do we lock in electricity prices with a secure energy source and zero emissions?” he said. “It’s crazy that we have the best solar resources in the world and we’re building gas plants.”