Solar may give 25pc of power by 2050

Canberra Times
Tuesday 14/10/2008 Page: 3

Solar thermal energy could provide 25 per cent of Australia's power by 2050 if there is a commitment to build one solar energy station a year, a leading CSIRO scientist says. The manager of CSIRO's renewable energy projects, Wes Stein, told a public meeting in Canberra last night he had already discussed this future possibility with solar mirror manufacturers. "One solar energy station a year: that sort of scale would not scare them. This is technology that likes to be built big," he said.

Delivering the sixth annual Malcolm McIntosh memorial lecture, Mr Stein said Australia should aim to play a leading global role in developing next-generation energy technologies and was well placed to be a large-scale exporter of solar energy and expertise.

But greater support for research and development was needed. "There's plenty of work to be done," he said. "We need smarter solar collectors and clever optics to make more [and] better reflective surfaces. "We also need to come up with some fairly fancy new materials that can handle hot-spot temperatures and we can still improve thermal efficiency."

Mr Stein said solar thermal energy could be collected, stored as synthetic natural gas (syngas) and "transported around the world", creating lucrative export markets for Australia. Farmers suffering the impacts of climate change could switch from crops to earning income from "farming the sun".

"If you convert solar energy into liquid transport fuels, in a sunny environment somewhere in Australia, then three days later it's being exported for use in Tokyo or elsewhere around the world." The McIntosh lecture is given each year by a leading CSIRO scientist and honours the organisation's former chief executive British-born physicist Dr Malcolm McIntosh, who died in 2000.

Mr Stein, who has been a driving force behind solar thermal innovation in Australia, led the CSIRO team that developed the world's first high-concentration solar tower array, which uses 200 computer-controlled mirrors to generate more than 500kW of electricity. Debate over whether solar thermal could provide baseload power for Australia's grid was "a furphy question", he said.