The federal government’s $65 million funding for a major Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSP) project at Port Augusta is a positive step towards implementing long-duration renewable storage in the electricity grid and recognises the key role that CSP can play, says the Australian Solar Thermal Industry Association (AUSTELA).
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced the investment today in a 30MW/288MWh Solar Thermal power and storage project being built by Vast Solar north of Port Augusta, SA. Solar Thermal technology uses thousands of mirrors to concentrate the heat of the sun on pipes containing molten salt, which allows the heat to be stored in large tanks. The stored energy is used to generate dispatchable renewable electricity when it is needed.
Spokesman for AUSTELA, Dr Keith Lovegrove, said the grant was a significant boost to ensuring long-duration renewable storage was built at utility-scale in the grid.
“Minister Bowen’s statement shows that the government clearly understands that Australia’s power grids have a growing need for dispatchable renewable energy, energy security and longer duration storage as they transition to a zero emissions future,’’ said Dr Lovegrove. “This funding for the Vast Solar project at Port Augusta is also in step with the government’s proposed Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) which seeks to incentivise the construction of dispatchable renewables and long-duration renewable storage.
‘’Direct government support for early projects like this sets Australia up to have CSP as a viable option. In the long run, a well-designed CIS should enable a pipeline of commercially financed CSP projects built in anticipation of the retirement of our coal generators.’’
Dr Lovegrove said it made sense for Australia to make use of its high solar radiation to produce dispatchable, utility scale energy storage.
“Solar Thermal can store energy, generate power and also provide renewable heat for industrial processes. We congratulate ARENA for backing Vast Solar’s project at Port Augusta.”
He said that China, Spain, the United States, South Africa, UAE, Israel, Morocco, and Chile all had operational CSP plants, while Australia was yet to build one. There are now over 100 operational CSP plants around the globe, with a combined capacity of 6.8GW, delivering over 30,000 GWh per annum.