Advertisement
Advertisement
The Australian government is considering doing away with clean-energy targets. Photo: Reuters

Solar project fails as Australian government reviews clean energy

Developers scrap plans for a giant facility as a government review of renewable targets raises questions over its commitment to clean energy

BLOOM

Plans to build the world's largest solar power plant of its kind have been scrapped in Australia after the developers raised concerns about the government's commitment to clean energy.

Solar Systems said it suspended plans for a 100-megawatt plant in the Australian state of Victoria. The plant, which would have used concentrating photovoltaic technology to intensify the power of the sun, would have been three times larger than any currently commissioned projects, data showed.

Australia has assigned Dick Warburton, a former Reserve Bank of Australia board member who has expressed doubts about human contributions to global warming, to head a review of the country's clean-energy goals. The current target is to get 20 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020, up from about 15 per cent in 2013.

The project in Mildura was scrapped because of the review into the target along with lower wholesale power prices, according to a statement from Solar Systems, a unit of New South Wales-based Silex, and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. Funding for A$75 million (HK$539.15 million) of conditional support from the renewable energy agency was terminated, the statement said.

"After careful consideration of project economics, we have decided to reassess plans for the Mildura 100MW Solar Power Station," Silex chief executive Michael Goldsworthy said.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked Warburton to consider doing away with Australia's clean-energy targets, the reported, citing unidentified people. He has also scrapped Australia's levy on carbon dioxide and sought to dismantle institutions set up to help the country limit the pollutants blamed for global warming.

Other clean-energy developers have expressed concerns about Abbott's programme. Miles George, a managing director at renewable energy project developer Infigen Energy, said the moves would amount to "economic vandalism, pandering to the climate sceptic minority" and the prime minister was misreading the views of voters on the environment.

Conditional funding of A$35 million for the Mildura project from the Victorian government under the Energy Technology Innovation Strategy Fund was also terminated, Silex and the agency said in the announcement.

"[The agency] enjoys a good working relationship with Solar Systems and remains open to considering any new or revised project opportunities that are ready for testing and demonstration," the agency's chief executive Ivor Frischknecht said.

The Mildura project was designed to use concentrating photovoltaic technology. Known as CPV, it involves lenses and mirrors that concentrate sunlight on solar panels, multiplying the power they can generate.

The largest CPV plant to be fully commissioned is a 30MW facility in Colorado operated by Cogentrix Energy. A 44MW plant has been partially commissioned in South Africa and a 50MW project in China obtained financing and began construction in 2012, according to London-based BNEF.

A 1.5MW demonstration project in Mildura began feeding electricity to the grid in June 2013. Solar Systems was exploring alternatives to develop the Mildura site on a smaller scale, the statement said.

Earlier this year, the Silex unit completed a CPV project near Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the first outside Australia.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Australian policies kill off solar plant
Post