Australia slowly embraces renewables

Feature article

64 Renewable Energy Focus July/August 2007

Australia slowly embraces renewablesAUSTRALIA HAS ABUNDANT SOURCES OF COAL AND OTHER FOSSIL

FUELS AND IS UNLIKELY TO STOP USING THEM ANY TIME SOON. SO WHILE

THE UPTAKE OF RENEWABLES IS FAR FROM BEING ON THE SCALE IT IS IN

EUROPE, PLENTY IS NEVERTHELESS HAPPENING, AS RENEWABLE ENERGY

FOCUS CORRESPONDENT GEORGE MARSH FOUND ON A RECENT VISIT.

Legislative initiatives

Climate change has moved higher up the national agenda in Australia,

especially following a recent prolonged drought, the drying up of river

basins, water shortages and severe bush fi res. These have made the

population more conscious of the issues, a striking sign of this being last

November’s ‘Walk Against Warming’, in which an estimated 100,000 people

took part in state capitals and regional centres. This has all helped stimulate

pressure for action on renewables. Business is broadly in favour too. Peter

Szental, president of the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy

(BCSE), says that almost all sectors of the Australian business community

George Marsh

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Sub_Australia/Cat_General renewable energy

Renewable Energy Focus July/August 2007 65

now agree with the need to factor the greenhouse eff ect into their decision

making.

“We care currently sitting at the top of a new greenhouse policy wave,”

asserts Szental, who points out that Australia has a wealth of renewable

energy resources – sun, wind, biomass and geothermal in particular – and

access to a range of technologies for exploiting them. The BCSE believes that

the politics of climate change have become a big issue and will infl uence the

forthcoming Federal election. Australians have taken due note of infl uential

fi ndings such as the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate

Change and the UK’s Stern Review.

At national (Federal) level, the Australian government has said the country

will have an emissions trading scheme by not later than 2012. Although

the government’s intentions have not yet been fl eshed out with detail, the

move is welcomed, not least by the business community.

“A carbon price signal is key to driving private sector investment,” says BCSE

executive director Ric Brazzale.

The federal Government, as well as some individual states has also taken

steps to aid the development of the renewables sector.

At the country level, the government recently allocated Aus$18 million of

Aus$100m it has pledged under AP6, a six-country action plan that involves

Australia, South Korea, China, Japan India and the US.

Some 42 projects will benefi t under this initial allocation. Solar energy

emerges strongly with Aus$5m for a project led by Australian company

Solar Systems aimed at deploying pilot solar concentrators; Aus$1.8m for

the Australian National University along with Solar Heat & Power to develop

solar concentrator technology; Aus$2.9m for a project that will see a large

demonstration plant for the ‘solarising’ of fossil fuels built at CSIRO’s National

Solar Energy Centre at Newcastle, New South Wales; and Aus$1.46m to

support scholarships intended to address the shortage of competent PV

and solar energy engineers in AP6 countries.

Outside the solar sector, Aus$2.16m goes to a Monash University-led

team to improve the cost eff ectiveness of biomass energy generation and

Aus$650,000 for a renewable energy training programme in China and India.

The Federal Government has also announced a Aus$150m solar initiative to

boost uptake of solar PV by local communities (for other federal and state

initiatives see box opposite).

Recent wind project highlights in Australia

(See box on page 66).

Solar

Australia may be the world’s sunniest continent, but incentives are still

required to stimulate exploitation of this plentiful and renewable resource.

According to Dr Muriel Watt of the University of New South Wales, Australia’s

installed PV base has grown by 17% per annum over the last fi ve years – to

a 70 Mw total – compared with about 40% globally, so more progress is

needed.

The Federal Government has said it is committed to maintaining its PV Rebate

Programme, that has supported the provision of solar power for more than

15,000 families around Australia and was originally due to end this summer.

Government pump-priming of Australia’s PV industry to the tune of Aus$85m

over the last fi ve or so years has resulted in sales estimated at over Aus$1bn, half

of this as exports. PV interests, including some 300 small businesses, have been

lobbying the government to implement a long-term incentive framework so

that the industry can have the confi dence to continue to invest.

One type of incentive is enabling energy users who invest in solar PV the

opportunity to feed excess energy back into the grid, thereby offsetting

Renewables on the agenda

The Federal Australian government has said the country will have an emissions

trading scheme by not later than 2012;

It also recently allocated to renewables Aus$18 million of Aus$100m it has

pledged under AP6, a six-country action plan that involves Australia, South

Korea, China, Japan India and the US; it has also announced a Aus$150m solar

initiative to boost uptake of solar PV by local communities;

The state of New South Wales has announced that it will introduce a target of

15% renewables by 2020;

Western Australia wants its present target of 6% by 2020 to be raised to 20%;

Victoria has legislated a target of 10% by 2016;

NSW and Victoria, which together account for 54% of Australia’s power

consumption, will now have mandatory renewable energy schemes requiring

investment of over Aus$7bn in more than 3,500Mw of additional renewable

generation capacity;

South Australia’s regional Government passed its Climate Change and

Greenhouse Emissions Reduction Act 2007, legislating that 20% of the

state’s power will com from renewable sources by 2014. This makes South

Australia the fi rst place in Australia to legislate targets to reduce greenhouse

emissions;

Other initiatives exist for individual technologies, for example the continuance

of the PV Rebate Programme, which has supported the provision of solar

power for more than 15,000 families around Australia and was originally due

to end this summer.

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Solar PV Installation at Bronte Beach in Sydney.



66 Renewable Energy Focus July/August 2007

their bills. This is something householders in the Ecovillage at Currumbin

on Queensland’s Gold Coast can do. The 144 homes at the Currumbin

Ecovillage will, by themselves, almost double the amount of registered

grid-connected PV capacity in Queensland. Domestic installations,

typically a 1.5Kw PV facility for a home, are complemented by village

facilities such as a solar panel array on the Watershed, a building that

houses the community’s water recycling equipment. Solar thermal

collectors are used to produce hot water. BP Solar Australia has worked

together with Ecovillage and other partner organisations to provide

a ‘holistic’ and user-friendly PV solution. Ecovillages are largely self-

sufficient in water and other life necessities as well as energy.

Some investment is focused on particular cities. In Australia’s Solar

Cities programme, Alice Springs, Adelaide, Blacktown, near Sydney and

Townsville have been designated solar cities. Blacktown was the first and

is aiming to install more than 860 variously-sized PV systems and 2,100

solar water heaters for households. Each participating home will have a

simple kit comprising two sets of solar panels, one to heat water and the

other to generate electricity. Residents will be assisted with their up-front

costs, and the PV scheme will go hand in hand with energy efficiency

measures and the provision of smart meters. Blacktown should save

Aus$3m in energy costs and greenhouse gases will be cut by 25,000 t/a.

Alice Springs, the continent’s sunniest city, will benefit from some

Aus$12.3 m of Federal funding and Aus$17 m from local authorities.

Townsville’s Aus$30m project reached a milestone recently with the

concluding of a contract between consortium leader Ergon Energy and

the Federal government to place some 500 solar PV systems in selected

homes and public buildings.

BP Solar, which is heavily involved as a member of the Blacktown City consortium,

points out that peak solar generation in Australia coincides with peak summer

demand (hot summers require air conditioning). The company counters the

cost per Kwh premium objection to solar by indicating that this sector delivers a

higher ratio of jobs per kWh than traditional forms of energy.

The four Solar Cities together are expected to install over 3,000 solar

PV panels on private and public housing and other buildings, conduct

thousands of energy effi ciency consultations and help almost a quarter of a

million residents and businesses to reduce their energy costs. Greenhouse

gas savings are expected to total 76,000 t/a and the communities should

save Aus$9m pa in electricity bills. The towns will receive Aus$15m through

the Australian government’s Aus$75m Solar Cities initiative, and expect to

leverage a further Aus$22m from industry and other partners.

Meanwhile, an expansion to an existing solar PV facility at Carnarvon, Western

Australia, is expected to result in the country’s largest privately owned PV

energy farm. Perth-based Solar Sales is the major supplier in the task to triple the

installation’s power output to over 300 Kw hrs/day. The farm, established with

the help of local government rebates, is already highly productive, having saved

over 11,000 litres of diesel in the last year alone, according to Bob Blakiston,

Solar Sales’ ceo. When completed in July this year, the upgraded 45 kW facility

will signifi cantly boost levels of power delivered to the grid. The project is said

to be a tangible sign of the growing confi dence in solar energy felt at state and

Federal government levels in Australia. Blakiston believes that this has helped

his company gain the support of mainstream investment markets.

Parts of central and northern Australia, with their ample space and intense

sunshine, are regarded as ‘naturals’ for solar concentrator technology. Solar

Systems has installed three solar dish power stations, developing 720 kW in

Recent wind project highlights in Australia

Construction has commenced for a 128 turbine, 192 Mw wind farm at Waubra,

Victoria.. The Aus$400m farm is for Acciona Energy, which is also progressing

farms at Newfield and Berrimal in the same state;

Another Victorian wind farm can be expected thanks to a recent planning permit

given to WestWind Energy for its proposed 160 Mw facility to be built at Mount

Mercer, 30 km south of Ballarat;

Meanwhile, International Power has submitted a proposal for a 14.2Mw turbine

farm for Winchelsea, west of Geelong, Victoria;

After a protracted approval process, the Federal authorities gave the green light

earlier this year for Wind Power Pty to install 52 turbines six miles from the south

Gippsland coast near Tarwin Lower, Victoria. Generating up to 104 Mw, the Bald

Hills Wind Farm will be able to supply the equivalent of 63,000 homes with

green energy. The approval comes with strict conditions on the protection of

wild species including the Orange-Bellied Parrot, and Bald Hills Farm Pty Ltd is

expected to contribute Aus$30,000 per year for all threatened bird species along

the South Gippsland coast for the life of the farm;

Recent additions to the tally of wind farms now working include Cathedral Rocks

Wind Farm on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, and the Emu Downs farm

near Perth, Western Australia. Cathedral Rock, a joint project of Acciona Energy

and Roaring 40s, comprises thirty three 2Mw Vestas V80 turbines, which were

assembled in Vestas’ Tasmania factory. The glass and carbon composite turbine

blades are 40m in diameter. The operators expect to produce up to 225,000

Mwh of electricity per year, which is being sold to TRU Energy under a long-term

power purchase agreement. This farm occupies 29 sq km of land and 11 km of

coastline;

The Emu Downs farm is intended to power a new Aus$387m seawater desalinisation

plant for Perth, Western Australia. Synergy Energy supplies power from forty eight

1.65 Mw turbines to what is billed as the largest desalinisation plant of its kind in the

world to be powered by renewable energy;

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Meanwhile, work is proceeding on the second stage of Lake Bonney Wind Farm, near Mt

Gambier in South Australia. Fifty three Vestas turbines will raise capacity at the Babcock and

Brown project from 80.5 Mw to 240 Mw. This farm is expected to be fully commissioned

by early next year. Babcock and Brown and International Power anticipate applying for

approval to develop a seven-turbine 18 Mw farm on Mt Oxley, Bourke, New South Wales;

Work is also under way on a Aus$200m farm at Snowtown on the Hummocks and

Barunga Ranges about 100 miles north of Adelaide. An initial 42 Suzlon S88 turbines of

2.1 Mw each will be Stage One of a possible 130 turbine total approved for the site which,

when fi nished, will deliver some 350 GWh each year. According to Keith Tempest, chief

executive of TrustPower, developer and owner of the farm, Snowtown is ideally located

near the transmission grid and has a superior wind resource. Interestingly, TrustPower

is better known for owning more than 30 hydro-electric generation stations, though it

does own and operate the Tararua Wind Farm in New Zealand;

A number of recent approvals presage more wind exploitation to come. New South

Wales has approved the construction of a 132 Mw farm for Renewable Power

Ventures. To be known as the Capital Wind Farm, the new power facility will have 63

turbines of 2.1Mw each located near Lake George on the Great Dividing Range;

AGL Energy Limited recently received approval from the Victoria government for

their 329 Mw Macarthur Wind Farm. The Aus$600m 183 turbine farm would be built

about 240 km west of Melbourne, subject to a fi nal investment decision due in the

next 12 months;

Allco Wind Energy has won approval for a proposed 124 Mw farm near Toowoomba

in Queensland. The right to develop the 75 turbine Crows Nest Wind Farm came

with a number of wind projects acquired from Energreen;

Gamesa Energy has received planning approval for its proposed Aus$145m

Hawkesdale wind farm, north west of Warrnambool in Victoria. The project had to

be scaled back to 31 turbines from 76 originally proposed;

Gamesa is also planning another Victorian wind farm of up to 60 turbines, at Ryan

Corner;

A planning application has gone in from Wind Corporation Australia for a 19 Mw

farm at Black Springs, New South Wales.

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Renewable Energy Focus July/August 2007 67

total, in the Northern Territory. These have led to signifi cant reductions in diesel

consumption for the small, relatively isolated communities of Hermannsburg,

Lajamanu and Yuendumu. Up to half of their daytime electrical loads have

been met by the concentrators at times. Thirty dishes, each made up of 112

curved refl ecting mirrors on a steel frame, track the sun throughout the day.

Each dish concentrates sunlight by 500 times onto PV modules comprising

24% effi cient silicon-based PV cells supplied by SunPower in the USA. The

cells are actively cooled so that they can operate at optimum temperature,

adjacent sewage ponds being used as a heat sink.

The solar dish receivers can readily be upgraded with new PV modules as more

effi cient technologies become available. One solar dish at Hermannsburg has

been retrofi tted with multi-junction PV technology developed by Solar Systems

in collaboration with Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary. This has increased dc

output by around 50% to some 35 kW, justifying for this dish the claim of being

the world’s most effi cient solar power generator.

A Aus$3.4m grant from the Australian and Northern Territory governments

under their Renewable Remote Power Generation Programme helped off set

the Aus$7m project cost. The three plants are expected to produce over

1.5million kWh of electricity per year for feeding to local mini-grids.

Bio-energy

This vast continent also has great potential for biomass energy generation.

Industrial cogeneration in sugar milling and mining is well established, though

cogeneration in commercial buildings is less so - partly due to Australia’s warm

climate. In particular, large sugar manufacturing plants produce copious

bagasse waste which can be used in cogeneration. Mackay Sugar, for one, has

secured Aus$12m of a Aus$33.6m government package for its Racecourse

Mill cogeneration project which will produce electricity and, some time later,

ethanol. Mackay anticipates generating 240,000 Mwh per annum and exporting

some 180,000 Mwh of this to the grid. Up to 100,000 tonnes of bagasse from a

number of mills will be stored at Racecourse Mill. Final approval for a two-year

construction project is anticipated in July.

A Aus$6m cogeneration plant at an abattoir in Toowoomba, Queensland

produces up to 5 Mw of electricity along with 7 Mw equivalent of steam and 3

Mw of hot water every hour, reducing costs for abattoir owner KR Castlemaine

Foods. This totally unmanned plant exports up to 1.9 Mw of spare capacity to

the local electricity grid, and greenhouse emissions have been cut by 12,000

t/a. Queensland company DDC Energy Services designed and runs the

plant, in which engine exhaust heat is used to generate the abattoir’s steam

requirements. It hopes that the project will act as a model for other potential

cogeneration plants in Queensland.

Hydro

Australia has its fair share of hydro-electric installations, though the productivity

of some has fallen prey to the drought-induced drying up of rivers. Fairly typical

is Snowy Hydro which, In January, reported its water storage levels as being

at their lowest since 1973, with infl ows only about a quarter of the long-term

average. It even started reclaiming downstream water by pumping it back

upstream at off -peak times. AGL’s Eildon power station on Victoria’s Lake Eildon

has been forced to reduce generation dramatically because of low levels.

Nonetheless, investment continues. A recent Aus$6m upgrade to the Brown

Mountain Hydro-electric Power Station in New South Wales has raised the

station’s capacity from 4 Mw to 5 Mw. A new 2.7 Mw mini hydro facility from

Tyco has recently been installed for Sunwater at Paradise Dam in Queensland.

At national (Federal) level, the Australian government has said

the country will have an emissions trading scheme by not

later than 2012. Although the government’s intentions have

not yet been fl eshed out with detail, the move is welcomed,

not least by the business community.


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Australia slowly embraces renewables