Renewable Energy

Spiralling global energy use has prompted a heightened international desire for more sustainable energy management and a focus on renewable energy. In Australia, the renewables industry is blossoming.

Like Japan, Australia is a nation that is environmentally conscious. With a government that actively promotes the efficiency and sustainability benefits of renewable energy, companies enjoy the benefits of burgeoning R&D expertise, a government-supported market for renewable energy, and abundant natural resources including sun, wind, water and land.

Australia has established the world’s first guaranteed market for renewable energy providers, by setting mandatory clean energy supply targets for electricity wholesalers and retailers. As well as increasing the contribution of renewables and generating an estimated A$2bn of investment in renewable energy, this will make a dramatic contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Sun

Australia has the best sun resources in the world for generating solar energy. The light that falls on Australia each year is about 15,000 times the nation’s annual energy needs.

No surprise, then, that Australia is the largest user of solar energy per head of population in the world. Multiple new technologies have been developed through substantial investment and research in areas such as photovoltaics and hot water heating.

One of the most dramatic developments is Enviromission’s proposed 1km-high solar power tower near Mildura, New South Wales. The project will have the capacity to generate 200MW, power 200,000 homes, and abate around 900,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas annually.

Australian company Solar Heat and Power builds the world’s lowest cost large-scale solar concentrators. Using Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology, the company is constructing the 1MW Phase One of a 40MW plant that will output wet steam at 285°C to the Liddell coal-fired plant in New South Wales. The company is also developing a 240MW stand-alone plant with its own turbine for use at various sites around the world.

Photovoltaics is the fastest growing solar industry and an emerging export market for Australia, where advanced manufacturing and research are already well established.

BP Solar recently invested A$12m to expand the largest photovoltaics manufacturing plant in the southern hemisphere. Origin Energy has also commenced construction of a A$20m solar photovoltaic manufacturing plant in South Australia, using its Sliver Cell technology developed with the Australian National University’s Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems.

Australia’s largest photovoltaics project to date is Sydney’s Olympic village. Now a model suburb for renewable energy, it has 5000 permanent residents and generating capacity of 844kW.

Australia is an international player in the solar hot water industry. In 2002/3, the industry generated around A$135m in sales, including exports of A$27m. Australia has five major manufacturers of solar water heaters. Solahart is a world leader, exporting R&D knowledge and skills to more than 70 countries worldwide. The company’s pressed-tray solar water heater is suitable for installation in all climatic conditions, water types and geographic locations.

Wind

Australia is not only a hot nation, parts of it are also extremely windy, especially areas in the ‘roaring forties’ latitudes of the south. Wind farms include the A$270m Portland Wind Energy Project, being developed by Australian renewables producer Pacific Hydro. Once complete, the project will have a capacity of 195MW. Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas is setting up a facility near the site to manufacture blades for the project and others like it around Australia.

Tasmania, Australia’s southern-most state, has some of the best wind resources in the world. Hydro Tasmania is developing a 150MW wind farm on the state’s west coast, but potential extends far beyond this. According to government estimates, Tasmania has the capacity to generate 3000GWh of electricity per year.

Water

Hydro-electric generation produces most of Australia’s renewable energy.

The largest hydro-electric facility is owned by Hydro Tasmania with 10,000GWh, followed by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority with 5000GWh.

As well as large developments, there are considerable opportunities to develop small-scale commercially-viable hydro facilities for communities outside metropolitan areas, and systems to supply households in remote areas.

With a coastline measuring more than 30,000km, Australia has awoken to the potential of emerging wave power and tidal technologies. Energetech Australia, for example, is building a prototype 500kW wave energy converter for commercial trials at Port Kembla in New South Wales. Seapower Pacific is developing a dual-purpose wave generator to produce electricity and desalinated water, using technology developed by Carnegie Corporation, in Fremantle. And Atlantis Energy has announced its plans to deploy a 1MW pilot Aquanator ocean current generator in the Clarence River estuary in early 2005.

Earth

A large country floating on a bedrock of granite, Australia is investigating the possibilities of geothermal electricity production. In particular, a number of companies are tapping into the country’s ‘hot dry rock’ reserves.

Queensland-based Geodynamics has developed a geothermal well in the Cooper Basin, South Australia, that will generate heat from buried hot granites by circulating waters through an engineered, artificial reservoir or underground heat exchanger. The A$10m Habanero 1 and 2 wells tap a potential energy field equivalent to 20 times Australia’s current oil reserves.

Biomass

Australia has long promoted the use of biomass – plant, animal and waste materials – as a viable energy source. Spurred by government renewable energy targets, the installed capacity of budding biomass projects around the country reached 578MW in 2003.

Examples include plants run on wood waste and bagasse fibre by-products from Australia’s extensive sugar cane plantations. Australia’s sugar industry estimates that bagasse has the potential to produce more than 4000MW of electricity annually. Oil Mallee trees are also planted as commercial energy crops and offer the added benefit of mitigating soil salinity.

International companies are using Australian biomass renewables to buy carbon credits. Mitsui will purchase up to 500,000 tonnes of credits from Australia’s Global Renewables group through a waste-to-resource project. Tomen Corporation and Chubu Electric Power have been involved in a trade of carbon rights arising from MacGen’s biomass co-firing power station.

Hydrogen

Australia’s abundant hydrocarbon and renewable resources are excellent sources of hydrogen, and the Australian Government is developing a plan to tap these resources. The National Hydrogen Study will examine hydrogen’s potential as a future energy source and promote Australia’s transition to a hydrogen economy. There is promising research under way in this field, including a University of New South Wales project to develop a commercial device to produce hydrogen from photolysis of water using solar energy.

The use of hydrogen power in public transport is now under way, with the Western Australian state government participating in an international fuel-cell bus trial in collaboration with trials in Europe and America. More generally, the longer-term potential for using hydrogen in a range of other fields is of interest to Australian industry, universities and publicly-funded bodies such as the CSIRO.

Saving for the future

Renewable energy operations are mushrooming across Australia as local and international investors take advantage of the considerable opportunities in this sector. Australian companies and research institutions are working closely with global partners to develop the next generation of renewable energy technologies.

Supported by progressive government policy, the benefits of Australian renewable energy developments will be shared by the world.

Article by Invest Australia.

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