05/13 issue 2 ISSN: 0729-6436 Building a power station: electrons or steam? Options in solar thermal technology Running an electricity network Some hypothetical alternatives Building a technical Nepal Painstaking progress in the third world Central Victoria turns on to solar power What a difference a solar city makes THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN SOLAR COUNCIL Solar 2013 Conference & Expo Speakers and events
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05/13 issue 2
ISSN: 0729-6436
Building a power station: electrons or steam? Options in solar thermal technology
Running an electricity network Some hypothetical alternatives
Building a technical Nepal Painstaking progress in the third world
Central Victoria turns on to solar power What a difference a solar city makes
The OffIcIal JOurNal Of The AustrAliAn solAr CounCil
Solar 2013 Conference & Expo
Speakers and events
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Contents
844
Australian Solar CouncilForeword by ASC CEO and Solar
Progress Editor 2
Solar project financing tour of Taiwan 6
SOLAR 2013 CONFERENCE & EXPO PROGRAM 18SOLAR 2013 CONFERENCE & EXPO
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS 20
State Branch activities 49
ASC Membership listing 60
Solar advances and researchSolar thermal technology <50 MWCarbon reduction Ventures – into CSP 8
CSIRO’s Solar Forecasting project 30
Special featuresIf I ran an electricity network Alan Pears reviews the 2012 Energy
White Paper 12
Illawarra Flame at Solar Decathlon
‘energy olympics’ 22
Swedes aim high in transport renewables 34
Central Victoria Solar City – changing the
landscape 38
Building a technical NepalPeter Freere’s vision materialises 44
ResourcesAustralia’s Solar Installations 100 kW + 28
Political updateShadow Minister Greg Hunt outlines the
Coalition’s energy policy 4
News and viewsAustralia China partnership 16
Pain versus GainNigel Morris assesses solar industry’s vital
statistics 24
Local and global solar news 42
Tech TalkTech guru Glen Morris on PV maintenance 36
Advertorials: Solar products and services
Yingli, Urban Group Energy, Refusol,
Solar Inception, SMA, SunTrix and Schneider
Electric 42
Solar company profiles 52
A listing of prominent solar entities
38
18
Front cover:Newstead’s conservation-oriented community embraces healthy lifestyles and solar power Image courtesy Central Victoria Solar City
Not on our Mailing List?If you are not on our email alert database, but
would like to be, please visit www.solar.org.au
Australian Solar Council CEO John Grimes presents insights into the value of a recent visit by delegates to Taiwan, which boasts a massive solar industry.
Taiwan Solar Financing visit a success
Top: WINAICO Visit - Delegates get ‘up close’ to solar manufacturing Below: One on one Meeting Forum
Top: Delegates at the opening briefing session – John Grimes is centre front row, yellow tieBelow: Factories Tour
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8 | ISSUE 2 • 2013
One of the recommendations in last year’s ASI report (“Realising the Potential of Concentrating Solar Power in Australia”) was that Australia should think small when it comes to solar thermal power. This begs the question of how small is small? Bill Parker spoke to Rob Coltrona, the Managing Director of Carbon Reduction Ventures, about his move into solar thermal technology.
Do you wantelectronsor steamwith that power station?
Solar advances
Australian CSP had its origins in the outback at White Cliffs with a
25 kW multiple dish plant. This plant can regarded as the birthplace of
CSP in Australia, and from it came the Big Dish at ANU in Canberra, a
400m tracking plant. This has so far proved to be a challenge to transfer
the technology to full commercial operation.
Using the same basic starting point - that focusing the sun’s heat
on to a receiver enables the production of steam - another pioneering
venture began at Lake Cargelligo (500 kilometres west of Sydney) with
the origins of the technology commencing in the late 90s with the work
of Bob Lloyd.
This 3 MW plant uses large graphite blocks mounted on a tower with
an internal heat exchanger and a field of heliostats deployed to focus
on the block. In theory, it could be ideal to supply a reliable quality of
electricity to a “fringe of grid” or isolated township or mining camp.
Fast forward to another venture. The intention here is to build a 1.5 MW
plant at Morawa in Western Australia. Carbon Reduction Ventures, the
company intending to build this small plant are using the same technology
as at Lake Cargelligo under an agreement with Solastor Pty Ltd.
But how was CRV conceived? Rob Coltrona has a background in
technology development, a scientist by training, who chose to surround
himself with a team of people with backgrounds in project management,
utility experience and engineering. It grew from his experience in R&D
commercialisation management at Murdoch University. But just how do
you make the transition from R&D at a university to taking on a barely
tried, as yet not commercial, new technology?
Coltrona’s main driver was energy storage. His business interest was
piqued by the model of SunEdison (a successful US company started in
2003 and supplying commercial, government and utility customers via
Cooma Tower
SolarProgress | 9
small PV plants). But since PV had no viable large scale storage option at
the time, the focus for him was on finding a new solar technology with
storage potential.
Pointing at production curves for PV versus thermal storage, he
asks: “Why pay for a spikey output curve when you can have the
reliability of a consistent flat result? The key issue is actually heat, and
that’s a useful commodity; easy to capture, can be used very efficiently
and with low impact.”
In 2009 when CRV was just an idea, the options for technology
development were few in the solar space, and an approach to Lloyd
Energy’s Steve Hollis in 2009 proved fruitful. Hollis was keen to see the
deployment of the graphite block system in WA. The work in New South
Wales was underway to the point of delivering an output but at that
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Top: CRV PVBottom: CRP SCP
10 | ISSUE 2 • 2013
In 2012 CRV was successful in winning a WA Low Emissions Energy
Development (LEED) $3.775 million grant and the interest of the Shire of
Morawa. Morawa is situated on the fringe of the South West Integrated
System and one of the WA towns with poor electricity delivery. The
company is now busy with the final feasibility study and construction may
commence later this year.
This technology is different from the now familiar CSP projects. In this
case, heat is stored directly in a large graphite block. The block contains a
heat exchanger circuit that delivers the steam. Otherwise, it is not all that
different from other CSP plants in principle.
Beyond the “Flange” – the opportunitiesThe standard steam turbine is commonly used for CSP plants. However,
CRV are proposing to use the Organic Rankine Cycle technology because
it allows power generation at lower capacity with higher efficiency and at
a lower steam temperature, hence the possibility for lower-cost, smaller
scale decentralized operation becomes more feasible. Rankine was a 19th
century Scottish engineer and physicist. He was a founding contributor to
the science of thermodynamics who developed the theory of the steam
engine, but it wasn’t until the 1960s when Harry Tabor (a well known ISES
personality) developed the Organic Rankine Cycle engine.
WA had an ORC plant at Meekatharra with the first outback ORC
installation, not ultimately a success story (wrong place, wrong time and
not enough local experience). Now, with work of Mario Gaia at Turboden in
Italy the ORC technology is mature and suitable. (The Cargelligo plant uses
a simple steam turbine.) Rob Coltrona is quite sanguine about the process
and talks about the numbers in blunt detail.
“We have 100% heat in, 25 to 30% out as electricity; the rest requires
further inputs to be cooled. But how much parasitic demand is there? How
much cooling required?” he asks.
“I can see the challenge being how to use that waste heat beneficially,
and an example would be absorption chilling. The trade off between
“valuable water” and electrons is a choice, so we need to manage the
system to balance the technology to make the most of available water
versus possible electrons”.
There is no doubt that the CRV team will address that question in a
creative way. In fact, such a plant could just as easily be used to rectify poor
quality groundwater, for which there is a need in WA’s agricultural areas,
Morawa included.
The ChallengesLike the construction of anything, be it a hotel, building or swimming pool
or a 1.5 MW graphite block solar thermal plant, many approvals must be
obtained for the construction, and such processes are not normally fast.
The project will also require approval from the WA Development
Assessment Panel as it is over $5 million in value. Just another building for
the building inspectorate to evaluate and make recommendations to the
local councillors for a decision.
However, establishing a functional proof of concept providing a better
quality of electricity supply to an outback town could be the route to win
hearts and minds of miners, indeed anyone wanting a regular, reliable
process that produces electrons … or was that just plain heat?
An argument that has endured for decades – PV or Thermal – is also
played out right here. Short term, PV at megawatt scale wins financially,
and if the end user wants proof, visit the Walkaway solar farm or one of the
larger installations across Australia. Operation and management costs may
be lower for PV (two people at Walkaway), but local employment may see
benefits from CSP. Mirror cleaners in Spain have jobs where they never had
any employment at all before CSP, with heat being an added benefit!
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be optimisation. Beneficial use of
waste heat is one aspect. Configuring the plant to maximise electron
production or steam is another. Despite long–term costs of diesel being
relatively stable, they are rising and there is a forward security issue, thus
diesel displacement is a market, especially in WA.
Staying connected with the research benchIt is hardly surprising that Rob Coltrona values his strong connections
with the University sector. He sees this as an opportunity to generate
more trained higher degree students and to maintain the link between
operational technology and R&D.
“The central question for them is about cycle efficiency, from the heat
collection to the electron,” he says.
We look forward to this technology being firmly embedded in all the
markets that can benefit.
Further Informationwww.carbonreduction.com.au
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12 | ISSUE 2 • 2013
Alan Pears takes a different viewpoint on the Energy White Paper 2012.
If I ran an electricity network…
Special feature
We have seen the release of the final Energy White Paper and the report
of the Senate inquiry into electricity pricing. The final white paper was
substantially improved from the draft. But it still rates a ‘fail’.
The core scenario on which future energy policy is based is the
International Energy Agency’s (IEA) ‘New Policies’ scenario, which is
pretty much our past growth trajectory. The IEA’s ‘450 ppm scenario’
to limit global warming to around two degrees is largely ignored. The
brief discussion on page 204, titled ‘Integrating a Changing Climate into
Energy Planning’ focuses on climate adaptation and climate impacts
on energy infrastructure. The overall position is that cutting emissions
is not the responsibility of the energy sector, but is dealt with by other
government agencies and COAG councils!
So the Energy White Paper 2012, Australia’s energy transformation
fails to confront fundamentals such as the IEA view that, if we are to limit
global temperature increase to near two degrees Celsius, and global coal
consumption will decline by 30% by 2035. Less than a third of the fossil
fuel industries’ proved resources could be burned without exceeding
climate limits.
The white paper encourages people to explore different scenarios with
the online eFuture model, developed by CSIRO. Unfortunately, this only
allows consumption growth scenarios to be explored.
Among other things, the paper argues that fossil fuels are not being
subsidised, and that the generous taxation incentives simply reflect the
varying risk profiles of different activities. An interesting interpretation.
As usual, energy efficiency is dealt with last, in 16 of the 227 pages
of text.
Overall, this will be an interesting document for historians to look back
at when they try to explain to future generations how misguided our
society was, and why we failed to manage climate change.
Senate inquiry into electricity pricingThis report is a thoughtful discussion of the shambles that is our
electricity market. It has some useful recommendations and is well worth
a read. But the Hansard records of the inquiry hearings are much more
entertaining.
Hansard shows how, on one hand, the existing energy sector is
unanimous that there have been problems but that they are well on the
way to fixing them, so they should just be left alone. On the other hand,
they blame each other for the problems and express concern about the
lack of information on which to base decisions. For example, the head of
the Energy Department’s energy division admitted that his department
SolarProgress | 13
“So if I ran a network, I would broaden its activities into the competitive areas of the energy markets, both wholesale and retail, as well as the energy services market.”
had done no analysis of demand-reduction activities and their relationship
to electricity prices (Hansard 25/9/12). How can the department advise its
minister for resources on energy policy without doing this?
Those outside the mainstream energy sector were unanimous that
the problems are serious and will require substantial change. For
example, demand management expert Dr Paul Troughton estimated
that $16 billion had been spent unnecessarily on electricity supply
(Hansard p.67 27/9/12).
The depth of the cultural problem in the energy sector is reflected
in a comment by Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) chair,
John Pierce, in the hearings (Hansard 25/9/12). He drew upon a football
analogy, suggesting that the energy sector was just one specialist player,
and that there were other specialist players responsible for environmental,
social and other policy areas.
He suggested that it was ridiculous for other players to try to tell
a specialist player how to play as part of a team. He saw the role of
AEMC as focused on economic efficiency: others should deal with
other issues. He saw AEMC’s role as being “to inform other parts of
government what the effect on this efficiency objective is of things
they are thinking about…”
He, like others in the energy sector, interpreted the energy market
objective in very narrow economic terms and saw no role for energy
policy people to help other agencies to develop joint policy. No wonder
energy policy conflicts with other policies.
While the inquiry and its recommendations are a very useful step,
the big question is whether the energy sector will retake control of the
agenda through management of the detail of ongoing changes. Or will
they review their approach so it meshes with other government policies?
If I ran an electricity network…Electricity network operators are the whipping boys of the industry, with
some justification. But how could networks become part of the solution
instead of part of the problem?
At present, the core business of an electricity network is seen as
ensuring reliable and safe supply of electricity to consumers from large
power stations and measurement of electricity use for billing purposes.
They have no direct links to consumers and their culture is based on
building and maintaining poles and wires. Regulators treat networks
effectively as regional monopolies – although as I have pointed out
before, this is incorrect, as they compete with distributed generation,
energy efficiency, fuel switching and demand management – so they
are able to exert unfair market power. Networks are also paid based on
the size of their assets and the amount of electricity supplied through
their wires.
The main risk networks now face to their businesses is that use of
their capital-intensive networks will decline, while peaks become more
significant. Unless regulators agree to them extracting higher charges
from consumers or separating payment from electricity flows, this will
reduce their profitability.
14 | ISSUE 2 • 2013
So if I ran a network, I would broaden its activities into the competitive
areas of the energy markets, both wholesale and retail, as well as the
energy services market.
I would install regional electricity storage systems, which I could use
to store low cost electricity and sell it at premium prices. This technology
could be located strategically to also store exports from PV and other
distributed energy systems locally, before they complicate the operation
of the main network. This would allow ‘smart’ consumer technologies to
interact better with existing ‘dumb’ grids, reducing the need for high risk
investment in networks.
I would seek a licence to bid demand management into the wholesale
electricity market and set up a subsidiary business to develop this market
capacity. I would minimise additional investment in the existing network
so that depreciation and other allowances in tax rules would allow
reducing returns from them to be managed.
I would set up another subsidiary business to sell in-home and in-
business displays and smart controls, on-site electricity storage, PV and
stand-alone power systems, initially for fringe-of-grid customers, people
in high fire-risk areas and where networks are under stress. This would
include allowing consumers to share use of backup generators and
storage within local areas. This could include leasing these technologies
and providing ongoing fee-based maintenance and monitoring services,
so that those with on-site equipment need not be deeply involved in
running their energy systems. It might also include using under-utilised
grid capacity to provide low cost backup.
For the existing business, I would develop more sophisticated network
pricing schemes so that PV, other distributed generators and energy
efficient consumers gain benefit from avoiding demand or exporting
electricity at times and places of most use to the network.
This would encourage PV owners to consider orienting their panels
to generate more in the afternoon or to install storage to allow them to
complement the grid. This might be done through adding to existing
feed-in tariffs at certain times of day or by offering rebates on energy bills
based on actual avoided peak demand/exports at critical times.
Remote management of specific equipment such as pool pumps and
air conditioners and voluntary limits on peak demand, in exchange for
discounted prices, could also be part of the new business model.
Partnerships with welfare groups, community groups and other
businesses, as well as separate subsidiary businesses, will be necessary
to overcome lack of consumer trust in network operators, cultural
barriers and limited internal marketing and sales skills within the
network business.
Some elements of this model depend on changes to energy market
rules. But government policy makers should be supportive, as the
alternative is higher consumer energy costs and potential business failures
among network operators.
Alan Pears has worked in the energy efficiency field for over 20 years as
an engineer and educator. He is Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and
is co-director of environmental consultancy Sustainable Solutions
Reprinted from RenewEconomy of March 27 2013 with kind permission
of article author Alan Pears
Special feature
High risk areas in the Hills east of Perth. Poles and wires buried in the bush.