Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

The Australian Government’s commitment in the May 2009 Federal Budget for a $1.5 billion of solar energy investment in four solar power plants of 250 MW, which will require additional equity by the private sector, is a shot in the arm for renewable energy.

 Coming at a time when venture capital funding world wide for clean energy projects was becoming very scarce in 2009, the 1 GW of solar energy to be constructed by 2015 is a big step forward for Australia. It is expected that the projects for tender will be keenly sought by many developers.

 

 The Australian government’s initiative is part of its commitment to achieve 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020, under the mandatory renewable energy requirements set in place earlier this year.

 

Solar energy in Australia was languishing in the back seat, with wind energy projects in the lead, although the previous government had announced in 2006, a commitment to provide $125 million, with an additional $50 million from the Victorian state government for a 154 MW solar power plant to be built in north western Victoria, at a total cost  including private equity of $420 million.

 

The Victorian concentrating PV solar plant to be constructed by Melbourne based Solar Systems, which already has four small solar plants operating in outback Australia is a 20 per cent owned affiliate of TRUenergy, one of the largest integrated energy utilities in Australia, owned by the CLP Hong Kong listed energy utility group.

 

TRUenergy has already committed $1 billion to renewable energy projects in Australia.

 

The four new solar power plants to be managed by a single operator will allow for different technologies in each plant, if this is considered desirable. Apart from Solar Systems/TRUenergy group, the likely starters for bidding include:

 

BrightSource energy of Oakland Calif, the Israeli affiliate, which raised US$160 million in venture funds is achieving an outstanding record in California, with the biggest solar thermal projects in the world. The technology consists of a solar thermal power tower design, which includes thousands of small mirrors, known as heliostats, to reflect sunlight on to a boiler atop a tower to produce high temperature steam, which is then piped to a conventional turbine.

 

BrightSource has two major sets of contracts. One of these with the utility PG&E      involves power purchase agreements for seven solar thermal plants in the Mojave Desert of  northern California for a total of 1.31GW (1,310 MW) and to cost more than US$3 billion. The first solar plant is for installation in 2012. The other major contract is with Southern California Edison involving 1.3GW (1,300 MW), with the first plant expected in 2013.

 

Ausra, the Australian thermal solar start up which relocated to Mountain View, Calif, raised US$115 million in 2007-08, and a further $25 million some months later. The technology was designed by David Mills, the expatriate Canadian, who is the chief scientific officer, and previously a professor at the university of Sydney for 30 years. Mills, who is credited with designing the first solar water heater designed the linear Fresnel reflector system, which is optimising for the lowest cost of energy, not the highest technical sophistication. It uses an array of relatively flat mirrors that reflect sunlight to boil water in elevated tubes, producing steam that drives the turbines.

 

Ausra, which initially bid for large contracts with electricity utilities, and built in record time a 5 MW demonstration and test facility in Bakersfield Calif. in 2008 has repositioned itself from its Nevada factory as a supplier of solar thermal parts for other companies.

 

SolFocus of Mountain View, Calif. the concentrator PV firm, which was one of the few solar companies to raise US$ 67 million in the March quarter 2009, in addition to its $52 million raised in 2007 is achieving a very creditable record, with its technology of convex mirrors reflecting the sun’s rays 500 times onto a solar cell, which enables the system to produce solar power, with industry leading panel conversion efficiency levels of 25 per cent. It combines high efficiency solar cells approaching 40 per cent and advanced optics to provide solar energy solutions, which are scalable.

 

SolFocus is competing with solar thermal for utility plant contracts and large scale commercial operations, given its ability to deliver three times the efficiency of traditional solar systems with lower land use. Its largest project to date is a 10 MW commercial system being constructed in Greece.

 

First Solar Inc, the Tempe, Ariz. PV solar company is the world’s largest producer of thin cadmium-telluride PV solar cells, with a very efficient manufacturing process bringing its production costs for solar panels down to US$1 a watt, the lowest cost in the world, has been achieving record success even in the current world recession.

 

Net sales in the March quarter 2009 was a record US$ 418.21 million, 112 per cent higher than a year previously, with net income of $164.6 million. FirstSolar has been bulking up in recent months acquiring in March 2009 a $400 million portfolio of PV projects from OptiSolar. These include a 550MW Topaz site in Central California, which is under a power purchase agreement with the utility PG&E.

 

There is also a group of 1.3 GW (1,300MW) of development deals in the pipeline, mostly with utilities in California. In its own right, First Solar in conjunction with the German wind and solar company Juwi in April 2009 and the state of Brandenburg in Eastern Germany announced the construction of a 53 MW DC power plant near the city of Cottbus. The project being constructed on a former Soviet army base over 152 hectares will consist of 700,000 panels.

 

                                               

 

 

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Renewable Energies