Solar power station for Canberra?

the answer to all our energy problems is easy. we just don’t know what it is yet.

Nuclear is not viable in the ACT. A 1000MW nuclear power plant would consume 20GL of water a year. This is approximately 50% of Canberra’s annual usage. See:

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2006-07/07rn12.pdf

Thumper, economically, gradually integrating solar and wind into the existing grid will cost very little more to each customer if the burden is spread to all customers.

I have never understood why schemes such as “greenchoice” are voluntary because that means a few people with a conscience (less than 2% of the market) are paying significantly more for their power while everyone who doesn’t is a free-rider on the environmental benefits.

By contrast, spread the extra cost over the entire market and everyone would pay 1/50th of the extra cost more for their power.

As for people “not being willing to pay double the price for power”, this country has had some of the cheapest electricity in the world for decades and we should get used to the fact that prices will increase significantly when carbon trading is implemented. The REAL cost of coal-fired power, including environmental externalities, is closer to $60-80/MWh, and a carbon price will make that a reality. We’ve been living a lie.

As I mentioned before, currently your electricity costs about 4c/kWh to produce, yet you buy it for 12c/kWh. Isn’t a 200% markup a little high? Let’s say it costs 4c/kWh to maintain the grid and staff ACTEWAGL, that’s still a 100% markup. Cut that in half and you could buy wind power at 6c/kWh, maintain the company and grid for 4c/kWh (which I’d say is an over-estimate of costs), and still retain 2c/kWh for shareholder profit whilst not increasing the price to the consumer. How are these markups on an essential service justifiable???

Its deemed suitable to place a $$$ surcharge on our rates to fund everything else.

To say it cannot be done is naysaying with a huge dose of emu-head-in-the-sand.

Regarding wind, every time various governments/councils/businesses try to set it up, the nimbys chuck a huge sad about the noise, the eyesore on the horizon, the chopped up birds… I swear I hear the same news story about it every 6 months on the news, from various parts of NSW.

It may be in the future, but the cost is extremely prohibitive and at this stage cannot be justified given the returns.

I can justify it, because my justification has nothing to do with dollar cost.

What happened to myths two, three, four and five?

Is it a myth that they even exist 😉

Thumper: they were mythed, if you’ll excuse my lythp…

Ruffnready: the feed-in tariff is still in draft.

It was interesting to see this story yesterday – I figured the Chief Minister must have read our submission to the Feed-in Tariff Bill where we proposed the idea of a Gungahlin Carbon Neutral Cooperative to allow people to pool smaller investments into a solar farm somewhere highly visible like near the Federal Highway, and figuring it was a good idea decided to do it himself…

It was even more interesting that he conceded there would be some increased cost resulting, given that this is the key problem he’s been raising as he’s been reported to be going cold on the Feed-in Tariff Bill, about which we expressed concern a couple of weeks ago.

Solar pwoer, along with wind an biomass are all viable technologies and should be used immediately.

It is worse for everybody to sit around and argue that solar can’t sustain an entire city. How about building the installation and using it to reduce the base load. It’s all supplementary power (then add wind and biomass to the mix, all supplementary).

Cut the dependency on coal to shreds. It’s not about replacing the existing powerplants today. It’s about NOT needing to build another one!

I think it should be mandatory for every new dwelling built (including knock-down rebuilds in existing suburbs) to have a grid connected solar array. Along with grey water treatment and storage. When you start to require these things, the economy of scale kicks in and prices fall. It also becomes only a very small fraction of the price of building a home (not to mention cheaper due to not retro-fitting them).

Solar IS viable, and it is being proven to be in many parts of the world. For example, California and the south-west of the USA where there are large ‘utility-scale’ projects already underway. California’s biggest power utility has signed a contract with a company using solar thermal technology developed in Sydney to build a 177mw solar plant. They propose to deliver power to the grid at competitive pricing to other sources. Frankly, the whole ‘solar isn’t viable without massive government subsidies’ is a convenient do-nothing approach that only furthers the interests of the coal industry. Australia should be leading the world in solar power – much of the technology and expertise has been developed here. Australia went to sleep on this during the Howard years.

PS isn’t it insame that coal-fired power costs the producers 3.5c/kWh, and yet it’s sold to us at around 12-15c/kWh!? Talk about egregious markups!

PPS The government just introduced “feed-in tariffs” for people who use their solar panels to sell electricity to the grid to try to an encourage people to equip themselves with solar PV. Here’s a story about it:

http://www.enviro-friendly.com/canberra-feed-in-tariff.shtml

although I can’t find anything to say that it’s happened yet. Will keep searching.

Also, it is absurd the way electricity is priced – flat rate up to 60kWh/day/customer, then 1.7c/kWh surcharge. How about introducing a flat rate up to 20kWh/day, then exponentially increasing surcharges in combination with real-time electricity metering in all houses? people might actually think about using less electricity were that the case!

What the hell are you talking about, Thumper? What do you mean by not “viable”? You imply that the technology hasn’t been developed when in fact solar photovoltaic cells have been in use for decades, and their energy conversion efficiency has increased 300% since the first generation. There are hundreds of companies across the globe developing new and better solar PV cells. Solar photovoltaic can power a house without a problem.

Now if you mean “economically viable”, that is another matter. Solar PV currently costs about $100-120/MWh vs $60-70 for wind and $35-40 for coal-fired generation. However, those costs don’t take into account the environmental damage engendered in coal-fired power (to land, water and atmosphere), and that’s what the carbon price is all about. Not only that, but the price of solar PV continues to fall with economies of scale. I wouldn’t be surprised if solar PV is about the same price as wind within a decade.

As for this solar power plant, sounds like a poor idea to me at this time because least cost models suggest that DEMAND REDUCTION is a far easier and cheaper way to mitigate pollution and prevent the need for new power plants. California focussed on demand reduction back in the ’70s and have since avoided 25GW worth of plant that would otherwise have had to have been built. We all waste large quantities of electricity, so let’s learn not to before we go building new plant.

None of our governments are serious about greenhouse mitigation anyway – none are doing much about demand reduction, and they continue to allow coal-fired monstrosities to be built, Anvil Hill in the Hunter and Gladstone in Qld as two recent examples. A government serious about greenhouse would ban all new generation from non-renewable sources (and maybe natural gas, which produces 50-60% of the GHGs coal does and is often used for peak-load generation).

Solar technology will never improve unless people start using it.
This is one of Jon’s better ideas.

Solar power is already being used by some households not far from Canberra on the outside or the edges of the grid.
Only 25 years ago I put solar water heating on my roof at a time when no one around was doing it. Now it is the norm.
The main question will be whether solar power can be done more economically as part of a large solar farm or whether it is better to have it at a local level.
In Denmark some villages share a community funded wind generator.
Financing the development and instalation of solar farms will probably dictate who owns and controls them. This is not necessarily an electricity provider. It should be an investment oportunity open to all.

I only posted the relevant ones that debunk your original post. Google it for yourself from here on in 😛

And yes, they can contribute to all of our power needs, right now.

Instead of a permanently translucent state of fartarseing around, like your beloved liberal coalition wanted to do, somebody needs to take a major lead and actually start the ball rolling on what would become a bigger project than Telecom Australia.

Will it be Labor ? Who knows.

As an aside, what does the development of the propellor have to do with wind power reaching its zenith ?

I’d suggest the lack of people building windmills and wind power units has more to do with wind power reaching its zenith than the development of the technology to do it – a not impossible task, but given the propensity of NIMBY’s and outcroppings of incredibly rare -but everywhere- orange bellied parrots, that issue has its own problems.

(to answer your original question though, windpower and biomass can provide electricity when there is no sun, therefore adding to the delivery of continual electricity supply – an inherent problem when talking of a power source that is only active for 1/2 of a 24 hour period)

MYTH Number One: Solar energy can only heat water.

REALITY:
Solar (renewable) energy includes the production of electricity and heat directly from solar radiation for many applications. It also includes the utilisation of indirect forms of solar energy like the power of the wind and water and all forms of energy from biomass (plant and animal material).

Designing your house to use solar energy passively can provide 60%-100% of your heating and cooling requirements.
Photovoltaics (solar cells), wind generators and hydro can supply electricity for any use.
Biomass fuels include wood, alcohol, and methane for heating, electricity generation or transportation.

MYTH Number Five: There isn’t enough solar energy to maintain our current lifestyle.

REALITY:

There is 25 times the yearly energy needs of Australia and New Zealand falling on those land areas on an average day.
The southern coastline of Australia and New Zealand is in the “Roaring Forties”, one of the best wind regimes in the world.
Biomass resources (vegetable matter including waste and specifically grown energy crops) could sustainably supply all of Australia and New Zealand’s liquid fuels without interfering with food and fibre production from arable land.

and a spare one

MYTH Number Six: To collect enough solar energy requires large arrays of collectors tying up a vast land area.

REALITY:

There is sufficient roof space on homes alone to produce the total electricity requirements of Australia and New Zealand using existing photovoltaic technology.
Wind generators occupy only a small space for the tower with the rest of the land area being available for agricultural uses.
Solar supply allows decentralisation and the use of small modules which can be accurately matched to the load and which minimise electricity distribution line losses.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

… I love the inmates on a huge wheel idea.

And as an additonal energy saving we make them go faster in winter to cut the heating costs and boost power output for the rest of us.

Then the inmates can feel they are finally making a contribution.

Solar isn’t viable – yet. I love the inmates on a huge wheel idea.

Enough sunlight falls on Australia in one day to supply power for 25 years using current technology. I suggest the naysayers may want to check out those apples.

As circulated around my workplace this morning – Stanhope cant even manage picking up all the glass/pet/aluminium (mostly alcoholic) drink bottles on the side of the road, do we really expect him to be capable of this ?

Maybe he should take control of a lesser task – like picking up the smoke butts around town, in order to establish a bit of faith in his capabilities.

How about we send a certain (education) minister into the furnace, I’m sure that he would go ‘poof’ rather than fizzle.

I smell an election coming on. This is an entirely cynical political move. Chicanery. Great distraction and thye don’t have to actually build anything.

If it can be viable then why not. Always thought that the dish at ANU could be well used elsewhere.
Inmates in wheel could be amusing, just reminds me of that Conan movie though.

I thought nuclear needs massive population density to ever justify the absolutely mountainous upfront cost.

I second inmates in wheel.

I’d feel safer having a recumbant bicycle factory next door to my house!

BANANA principle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BANANA

See also – NIMBY.

They can build it near my house.

But slighty unpopular?

A nuclear power plant would be more efficient.