The idea of a giant solar battery to save South Australia from power blackouts was ridiculed by many when it was first proposed . The state took up the challenge, and its success has been so wonderful that this brilliant idea is being replicated elsewhere.
We are about to get the world's biggest solar battery in New South Wale's Hunter Valley and together with the project in the Snowy Mountains, this will enable the last of those old coal fired plants to finally close down. Hopefully, it will end the verbal war that has raged for decades to secure a reliable power source to keep the lights on in New South Wales.
This project is backed by CEP Energy and the battery will be built at Kurri Kurri. CEP Energy draws its power mainly from factory and warehouse rooftops around the country. It negotiates use of this unused space to install its own solar arrays and now controls over ten million square metres of solar drawing energy from the sun.
Australia leads the world in building rooftop solar on homes but has so far ignored the potential available from commercial roof space. Just a look down on this state from the air reveals the potential. The vast amount of factory and warehouse roof space unused can supply the missing component of drawing our power needs from wind and solar. We can store the energy created in daylight hours to supply our needs when the sun is not shining.
This development which is getting under way mirrors an announcement by the state government that they intend to build a hydro powered giant battery at Albury on the New South Wales and Victorian state border. This will take power from the extended Snowy Mountains extension and distribute power to the grid at times of peak demand.
This $32 million battery will work in tandem with the one at Kurri Kurri to even out the power needs of the state and will be helpful in sorting out the time differences in the power grid that connects the various parts of Australia. Technology is now providing the confidence to invest in an integrated system to spread supply and storage in a manner which delivers the required reliability.
Construction is expected to start this year, and completion of the Hunter Valley battery should be finished in 2023. There is the expectation than replacing the national car fleet with electric cars and ending the generation of electricity by coal fired power stations, we will move a lot closer to our need to halt global warming.
At last, we are moving to a rational time plan !
No comments:
Post a Comment