Coal shoulder: all solar power to you $1.5 billion to fuel four large plants

Age
Thursday 14/5/2009 Page: 4

SOLAR companies are preparing themselves in a bid to build what is being described as the largest solar energy plants in the world under government budget spending. There was $1.5 billion set aside in Tuesday's budget to build four solar plants, preferably solar thermal or solar photovoltaic, which will produce 1000 MWs of energy, the size of a coal-fired plant.

The Australian president of solar thermal company Ausra, Bob Matthews, said his firm would almost certainly propose an application to build one of the plants. "This is a huge step, not just in Australia but worldwide. There are not any initiatives in the world this big and the Government has put the money behind it," Mr Matthews said.

James Harding, from MAN Ferrostaal AG, said that while it was still early in the process, his firm would also pitch for the project. But industry insiders say Victorian company Solar Systems, which runs a solar photovoltaic plant in Mildura, is best placed to score one of the four plants. A spokesman for Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said it was too early to say where the plants would be located. However, south-east Queensland is regarded as a certainty for at least one of the projects.

The head of the University of South Australia's Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies, Professor Wasim Saman, said northern South Australia, western NSW and north-west Victoria could also be in the mix, as there is reliable sunlight in those areas. Professor Saman said the space required for a solar plant generating 1000 MWs of power could be as much as 100,000 square kilometres.

But Professor Saman said the biggest issue would be ensuring a solar plant on that scale would be able to access the national electricity grid. The Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies operates a .5 MW solar demonstration program in northern South Australia. The $1.5 billion for solar energy in the federal budget was part of a wider $4.5 billion clean energy package, including $3.5 billion in finance. Other initiatives include $2.4 billion for clean coal projects around Australia and $500 million for a national research and development body to look at all renewable energy.

But the Government's clean energy plans are not without criticism. Green groups, including the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace, have slammed the large cost on clean coal, saying the technology is unreliable. Yesterday demonstrators draped a banner over Parliament House reading "carbon budget blowout", protesting the Government's emissions trading plans.

The Government's decision to fund $2.5 billion of the clean energy scheme from a fund dedicated to education spending has also raised eyebrows, with shadow minister for infrastructure Andrew Robb saying it represented the Government's lower priority on education.

"The Education Investment Fund was explicitly created just 12 months ago for universities and for vocational education and training - two areas absolutely critical to our nation's capacity to increase productivity so that we can rebound as quickly as possible in the future from this economic malaise and repay the massive home-grown government debt being incurred by this reckless and panicked Government," Mr Robb said.

However, Mr Robb said the Coalition would not stand in the way of the program, and legislation to draw money from the education fund passed the House of Representatives unopposed yesterday.