Adelaide Advertiser
Friday 15/6/2007 Page: 19
ABUNDANT sunshine, unique geology and a coastline battered by stiff breezes make South Australia a rare jewel. Not just for visitors and those who live here, though. The state's unique geography makes it a bonanza for renewable energy projects. South Australia has led the nation on wind energy - though it is now being overtaken by Victoria in that area - and has some of the nation's best sites for solar and "hot rocks" power generation. It is poised to become the renewable energy capital of Australia. And, with respect to geothermal energy, an example to the world.
Major plans announced by Santos for geosequestration - that is, burying CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels underground to prevent further climate change damage - will also help make SA the greenest state overall. Renewable energy companies generate about 8 per cent of the country's growing appetite for electricity and SA should be poised to eventually increase its share; it's currently about 10 per cent. There are some dozen wind farms dotted around the state, with world-first research into geothermal energy in the Cooper Basin and potential to grow substantial solar farms here. And, should Australia choose to take up nuclear power, as an alternative to coal and gas power stations, an abundance of uranium exists.
Susan Jeanes, chief executive of Renewable Energy Generators Australia, says SA has "serious potential" to lead the nation on renewables. Last year, former U.S. vice president Al Gore praised the state's "stand out" efforts on climate change and voiced the wish that other countries would follow suit. "You've probably seen, for now, most of the activity (in SA) in the wind industry but in terms of renewable energy the big areas are going to be geothermal and large-scale solar," Jeanes says. Next week, she will host Professor Jefferson Tester, from the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S. They will meet state and federal ministers to discuss the potential of Australian geothermal power generation.
SA is blessed with a geological formation called the Heat Flow Anomaly - a huge bed of super-hot granite perfect for this type of energy production. More than 10 companies are actively investigating "Enhanced Geothermal System" projects in SA, otherwise known as "hot rocks" technology. In basic terms, the process involves liquid being forced under pressure between cracks in heated rock kilometres below the earth's crust and subsequently harnessed to create steam and generate electricity.
According to the State Government, the exploration licences granted to these companies represented 90 per cent of all geothermal activity in Australia. Last year, one such company, Petratherm, signed a deal with the Beverely uranium mine to look at the viability of supplying the mine's future energy needs using hot rocks. This technology can potentially provide 7500 years of the nation's energy needs. According to Australian researchers, more than 80 per cent of prime sites are located in the expansive Eromanga Basin, which covers the northeast corner of South Australia and southwest corner of Queensland.
When it comes to geothermal, the eyes of the world are on projects in the Cooper Basin, in the state's far northeast. It is home to the hottest bore drilled in Australia (aptly named Habanero, after a scorching variety of chilli), with temperatures hitting more than 250C about 4km down. Unlike current wind and solar technology, geothermal is considered one of the only renewable energy sources that can provide reliable baseload power. According to Professor Tester, Australia will be "the world's laboratory" for geothermal energy, Ms Jeanes says.
Sunshine is another under-utilised resource. Large-scale solar is still in its infancy but a Melbourne-based company, Solar Systems, is leading the pack on commercialising this technology. After more than 15 years of research and development and establishing small-scale solar plants in the Outback (including one at Umuwa to produce power for Anangu Pitjantjatjara people), it was last year given the go-ahead for a $420 million large-scale solar plant in northern Victoria.
The zero-emission electricity it creates will be enough to power 45,000 homes a year. If this venture proves a commercial success, South Australians will eventually be able to expect the same. Company spokeswoman Julia Birch says that while no plans can be publicly announced, sunny SA has "great potential" as a location for major solar power plants. "South Australia is a key candidate for our technology because it has an attractive mix of good solar resources, remote towns and areas to connect to the national grid," she says. SA also has one of the best wind resources in the world - the problem is that most of it is not convenient to the distribution grid.
Ms Jeanes says that while SA topped the nation for wind energy generation, it is falling behind other states. Now that federal incentives for new projects have dried up here, investors are turning to Victoria to cash in on its renewable energy scheme. "It's still financially viable to build a wind farm (on the Eyre Peninsula) but now that the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target incentives are all fully subscribed, there will be no new windfarms built in South Australia because of a lack of financial incentives," she explains. "The industry is starting to shift to Victoria where there's now a Victorian Renewable Energy Target scheme." She doesn't see that kind of investment picking up again unless there is a new national or state scheme of incentives.
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