At Last A Solar Solution That Makes Sense

Australia has oodles of solar energy and it is mostly reliable. In most years there is very little rain in the desert area and even more fertile areas of the inland have huge potential for solar generation.

The problem has been efficiency for photovoltaic cells which are still using technology from the early 1900s. Other solutions such as using mirrors to heat water need the one thing that deserts don't have.

Another stumbling block of course has been cost with solar energy costing several times the cost of coal power plants.

But what if we could find a form of solar that can generate huge amounts of electricity, needs no water and can be constructed fairly cheaply from readily available components?

I think that if this works, it could be a winner for solar power.

From the SMH

AN EXPERIMENTAL solar power plant at Newcastle will be the biggest of its type in the world, with a field of hundreds of mirrors ''creating electricity out of sunshine and air''.

Most solar thermal power plants concentrate heat to boil water and spin turbines, but the CSIRO's miniature power station is designed for waterless regions of outback Australia.

The mirrors focus the sun's heat onto a tower that holds compressed air. The air, heated to 900 degrees, drives a turbine motor on top of the tower which produces electricity.
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The trial plant at Mayfield West, where the first mirrors were installed yesterday, covers about 4000 square metres - about the size of a shopping centre roof. Even running at low capacity, it will power about 200 households.

''The best solar regions in the world - like north-west Australia - are also the regions with the lowest rainfall,'' said James McGregor, the CSIRO's project director for solar technology. ''A lot of the mining towns in that part of the world rely on diesel for generating electricity, so our initial target market over the next five years will be the mining industry.''

The agency has calculated that the energy and carbon emissions embodied in the steel, aluminium and silicon needed to build the plant would be offset within two years, after which it would generate electricity without emitting greenhouse gases or requiring water.

Unlike the mostly steam-driven solar plants overseas, the design uses smaller, cheaper components that can be mass-produced. The curved mirrors for the plant are being made on the central coast by Performance Engineering Group, and the little motors used to guide them to face the sun are sold commercially for $19.95.

The project, which is expected to be built by Christmas at a total cost of $5 million and to generate power by the middle of next year is one of the first fruits of the Australian Solar Institute, a $100 million federal government program to support solar power research.

At present, just under 4 per cent of Australia's energy comes from renewable sources. The national renewable energy target is to raise that to 20 per cent over the next 10 years.