The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

6 comments on Ausra La Vista, Baby

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Phil Hart on October 25, 2008 - 12:01am

Bring it on. CSP is the way of the future, for Oz and several other countries.

It's largely a manufacturing process, so it can be scaled up easily. There's not much competition for the type of land they need in remote areas, so planning and approvals should be straightforward. Half the power plant is the same steam turbines used by the existing power generation industry, so we already have that in hand, and the hot fluids lend themselves to cheaper and easier thermal energy storage than some other renewables once CSP has scaled up to the point where that becomes necessary.

Greens Senator Christine Milne initiated a Senate inquiry into a feed-in tariff which has apparently been overwhelmed with nearly 100% positive submissions. How can the Government not implement one now? (easily, unfortanately)

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Big Gav on October 25, 2008 - 12:38am

The only real barrier in Oz is the cost of building new transmission capacity (the US has some additional problems with national parks covering some of the best desert acreage).

But if people are willing to build new transmission for CSG (coal seam gas) plants, they should be even more willing to build it for CSP plants.

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Cretaceous on October 25, 2008 - 8:59am

So "The Governator" is on the right track.
;-)

Here in Oz, unfortunately our Government emphasis is still essentially on symbolism, subsidising individual rooftop panels while CSP offers far greater efficiency.

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Cyril R. on October 25, 2008 - 11:36am

Your Australian mandatory renewable energy target (MRET) scheme might be a useful incentive for new transmission buildouts, as some low solar or wind resource areas (read: grids) won't be able to meet the MRET cost-effectively without importing solar or wind, making new infrastructure investments not only economically justified, but also purely financially (which is a more narrow and difficult criterion).

It's good to see Ausra make advancements. Things are going a bit slower than I'd hoped, though. Do you have any more information about their developments on type of thermal storage, and timelines? It doesn't appear that the larger 177 MWe plant will incorporate storage, in fact it looks like just another transitional pilot. I hope they stick to pressurized water storage, looks best overall, for now.

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