The Australian startup betting it can prove the sceptics wrong on solar thermal energy
Solar thermal power has been developed in countries around the world but not in Australia, where the number of comparatively lower-priced solar PV farms continues to grow. One local startup is aiming to change that.
Depending on who you speak to, concentrated solar thermal power is either an affordable round the clock source of electricity, or a white elephant. But one startup is convinced that the technology has a role to play in Australia's energy transition, pushing forward with plans to build the country's first major project in South Australia.
The technology, which uses mirrors to capture the sun’s heat and stores it in towers of molten salt, creating steam to power turbines, suffered a setback in Australia when a $650 million project in Port Augusta was cancelled in 2019 after US developer SolarReserve pulled out.
The project had backing from the federal government in the form of a $110 million concessional loan. SolarReserve had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the South Australian government for the electricity the plant would have produced.
Since then, not a single commercial-scale solar thermal power plant has gotten off the ground in Australia, despite the maturing of several technologies that have been successfully deployed in China, the US, Spain, South Africa and parts of the Middle East, including Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
