Last night’s budget included $1.5 billion over six years in a new Solar Flagships program. “The program will aim to establish an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar electricity generation capacity in Australia. This is similar to the generation capacity of a coal fired power station.”
At the same time it included $2 billion for carbon capture and storage (CCS) over 9 years. “This program will support the development of industrial scale demonstration projects for CCS technology in Australia. The portfolio of projects is expected to include a carbon dioxide storage hub with pipeline infrastructure, as well as integrated CCS projects to demonstrate a range of technologies to capture carbon dioxide from coal fired power stations.”
The contrast between renewables and supposed ‘clean coal’ couldn’t be more stark. The investment in solar is expected to create 1GW of real, emissions free power within the next 6 years. Wheras the larger investment in CCS will support the development of demonstration projects over 9 years. Reality vs Illusion.
Of course, the decision to give another $2billion to support the coal industry is just a political sop to an industry that has the Government over the barrel. The coal industry is well capable of funding their own research and development into CCS if they were really interested, but so long as they can get taxpayers to continue subsidising them they are unlikely to get their snouts out of the trough.
As well as the $2billion for CCS, the coal industry recently got $500 million for a new coal rail line in the Hunter Valley (more than the entire funding for Renewables Australia) and Greenpeace estimate that there are still around $7billion in subsidies that promote fossil fuel use.
But the future is clear. Renewable energy is here, it is growing, it works and the more we invest in it the faster the prices will drop so that it becomes cheaper than coal. The energy revolution is happening, but for political reasons Rudd and Swan are still hedging their bets – torn between the past and future.
This photo is of the PS10 11 Megawatt Solar Thermal Power Plant located in Southern Spain. The solar radiation, mirror design plant is capable of producing 23 GWh of electricity a year – which is enough to supply power to a population of 10,000.
12 Comments
Why is a carbon price and a renewable energy target not enough to promote the change in our energy mix?
I’m not suggesting the government support of proto-typing is bad, I just question the logic of a government subsidy on top of a “market based mechanism that will deliver the outcome at the lowest cost”. Government subsidizing solar power can actually hurt the rest of the renewable industry (which is currently cheaper). Any market share taken by these new solar plants will displace other renewable generation (presuming the solar plants can generate RECs) that would have been built by “the market”.
Because the carbon price won’t be high enough, and because the RET is going to predominantly drive wind investment. A large upscaling of wind is a good thing, but if we are seriously going to make the transition to zero carbon economy, we need other large scale renewables to be developed which may not be economic compared to wind in todays market. The best way to do this is through direct investment in addition to the carbon price and the RET.
The reason wind is cost competitive today is becuase of the direct investments made by the Danish, US and other Governments in previous decades.
Without direct investment, we won’t see the breakthrough technologies that will see the price of renewable energy drop to where it needs to go.
“23 GWh of electricity”
Per year? Total?
Per year.
> The coal industry is well capable of funding their own research and development into CCS if they were really interested, but so long as they can get taxpayers to continue subsidising them…
I don’t think the intent is to actually develop anything here – it’s more about maintaining a (false) hope that someday something might be developed.
So long as hope exists that something might turn up tomorrow, there’s no incentive to make any real change today.
“This photo is of the PS10 11 Megawatt Solar Thermal Power Plant located in Southern Spain. The solar radiation, mirror design plant is capable of producing 23 GWh of electricity which is enough to supply power to a population of 10,000.”
We can do some simple calculations to reveal more about this.
23 GWh is an average output of 23,000/8,760 = 2.6 MW, so it’s capacity factor is (2.6/11)x100 (11 MW being the nameplate capacity) = 24%
So it’s actually a 2.6 MW power plant.
Now, is this “enough to supply power to a population of 10,000″? In Australia, electricity generation accounts for ~31% of total energy consumed, or about 206,000 GWh for 21.7 million people.
So each person uses about 0.0095 GWh/year. Given that PS10 can produce up to 23 GWh/year, it could support the electricity use of 2,422 Australians, or the total energy use (electricity, transport, heating, cooking, goods, services) of about 750 Aussies.
I think we all know that solar is just going to be one of the solutions to our energy needs. I mean how much space would you need to build enough solar power facilities to look after a decent sized city of 250k +. (looks like a lot according to that picture)
So then we end up with clean coal it seems…or we could go Nuclear? I wonder why we are one of the few advanced nations scared of Nuclear Power? Is it because we are smart and know more about the apparent dangers or Nuclear Power or are we just backward thick heads?
Greg
http://www.shareswatch.com.au/blog
The most obvious reasons for not supporting nuclear power right now in Australia are: that the amlount opf money needed to get a plant up and running could generate considerable renewable power within months (rather than wait years for the ompletion of the plant); and everyone who has looked at nuclear have also come to the conclusion that our problem right now is time – matters are urgent, we need more renewable power now so we can phase out carbon based energy sources starting within 12-18 months? Why? Because if CO2 build up isn’t being reduced then the world will overshoot our CO2 levels and the rise in average temperatures around the world will be catastrophic well before 2020.
Hi Barry,
Don’t forget that
(a) the capacity factor of more modern solar power station designs is rather higher, and indeed solar thermal power with overnight heat storage can qualify as baseload power supply, and
(b) most individual electricity users in Australia use far less, both at home and at work, than the average implies.
A huge portion of electricity generation in this country goes to heavy industrial consumers who employ relatively few people, who have stalled for years on investing in obvious cost-effective efficiency improvements, and whose production is largely for export.
Conversely of course some electricity generation in other countries goes towards the manufacture of goods which Australians import — but Australia’s production in mining and agriculture effectively supports several times more people than live on our shores and our remaining manufacturers also sell to a far larger market than the domestic one.
The same applies to non-electric energy consumption: most of it is in the transport sector, and some industries and individuals (mining, frequent fliers) boost the average way above most individuals’ requirements. Once again, this is partly waste and partly because we are a productive and transport-intensive part of a much larger global market.
Greg,
Yes it would take a lot of open space dedicated to solar power production to provide all our electricity requirements, but
(a) one thing we aren’t short of in this country is open space;
(b) those concentrating solar towers in Spain are rather old and inefficient compared with newer designs and emerging technologies;
(c) we already dedicate a huge land area to coal mining for power production (not as much as the area that would be needed to replace it all with dedicated solar collectors, but comparable — if *all* Australian coal mines and slagheaps, including exporting ones, were covered over with efficient solar collectors that would meet our gross electricity needs);
(d) yes, direct solar energy collection is just one of many ways of producing electricity including fossil fuels, hot-rock geothermal, wind, biomass, waste reclamation, tidal and wave power and yes, nuclear;
(e) even direct solar collection doesn’t have to be on dedicated land area: within a few years (maybe two maybe twenty) rooftop solar panels will become cost-competitive with remotely-generated electricity from the grid. Combined with cost-effective power storage which is also becoming cheaper, this will change the economics of electricity completely.
There’s nothing either smart or backwards about Australians’ attitude to nuclear power. Nuclear power simply isn’t cheap; hydro is, coal is (in this country), wind is, and solar will be. We display a really foolhardy attitude to the risks of radioactive contamination in uranium production and we’d be quite technically capable of producing nuclear power here if we thought it was cost effective. In coming decades, various expensive foreign research projects may (or may not) demonstrate much cheaper nuclear power than is currently available. It may or may not by then be competitive with the alternatives; if it ever becomes the cheapest option I have no doubt we’ll start using it.
“Clean coal” is, of all the technologies mentioned, the only one which offers no hope of cutting costs in the long term: Capture and storage of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels is a very costly exercise which can *only* be more expensive than simply burning fuel as we do today; and the supply of fossil fuel is strictly finite and thus will only get more expensive (notwithstanding the unpredictable cycles of speculation, boom and bust) as the years go by.
Hi Barry,
Thanks for your reply.
I have to say though it seems that Australia has one view about Nuclear Power and many leading advanced nations have another. Surely countries like the U.S, France, Sweden the U.K. and Japan have weighed up the pros and cons of Nuclear Power and decided it is an important source of energy? Most of these countries are now planning the next generation of Nuclear Power Plants..even Sweden. (which had previously planned to go non-Nuclear)
I agree with the thrust into solar power don’t get me wrong, but I think it needs to be part of an integrated energy policy. If we really want to get those electric cars on the road we going to expand out energy generation capabilities.
As for the cost of Nuclear Power generation, surely since we are sitting on vast Uranium resources this will help reduce costs? We seem ok to send Uranium overseas so I guess our opposition to Nuclear Power cannot be because we are taking a moral stance against it?
I appreciate that Nuclear Power technology needs to be developed further, the question for me is why aren’t we involved in this development or do we want to go Nuclear in 20 years time and have to import all the technology? (just as we will import most of the technology for the $43 billion broadband network)
As for clean coal…aren’t we just basically hiding Co2 the problem underground?
Cheers,
Greg
There’s a factsheet on the all this (the “Clean Energy Initiative”) at http://www.ret.gov.au/Department/Documents/CEI%20Fact%20Sheet%20(13%20May%2009).pdf
It says the CCS Flagships Program also has a 1000 MW goal, but of “low emission fossil fuel generation” in this case. Anyone know what “low emission” actually means? I’ll bet the meaning is loose and evolving, like “clean coal”.
> I mean how much space would you need to build enough solar power facilities
> to look after a decent sized city of 250k +?
“Australia’s total current primary energy consumption of approximately 5500 PJ/a could be met by an area of 4000 km2 of solar collectors with an average of 20% conversion efficiency. If this were constructed as a power station with 20% land coverage it would measure just 138 × 138 km. Alternatively, the collector area needed is close to the area of domestic house roofs available nationally.”
http://solar-thermal.anu.edu.au/pages/pubs/IJES06.pdf
Gentlemen,
I recently Googled some solar energy companies to see what it was like to take advantage of the $8000 Federal Govt subsidy for domestic PV Solar installation.
A 1.04kW ‘home power station’ with grid feed inverter cost about $12000. It saved about $0.81 (81 cents) per day in coal fired grid power usage which averaged about $300 per year. This will produce the power output of a domestic frypan.
Without the subsidy it would take $12000/300 = 40 years to pay for itself. With the $8000 taxpayer subsidy it would cost a net $4000 and take about 13 years to pay for itself.
Scaling up to 3kW and 6kW ‘home power stations’ cost about $40,000 and $80,000 respectively, and the $8000 subsidy off these systems took the payoff periods to 35 years and 40 years.
The PV solar panels were warrantied for 20 years, and other components 10 years.
Assuming the PV panels have a usable life of 35-40 years, they just pay for themselves when ready to be replaced (and this ignores any interest cost on the initial capital over 35 – 40 years).
To be commercially viable, a 7-10 year payback period would be reasonable, and this would require a cost reduction for PV solar to 20-25% of current costs. ie 4-5 times cheaper than at present.
For those who see all the house roofs in Australia covered in PV solar panels, (just 4000 km2), please supply a working cost model.
I think I will wait for the next generation of PV Solar – one that actually produces a saleable surplus of energy and is not a cost black hole subsidised by cheap coal fired energy.