The federal government has allocated more than $600 million to help large-scale solar projects get off the ground, as utility solar photovoltaic projects become the next wave of renewable energy to be embedded into the national electricity market.
While the South Australian power crisis has put the focus on the unreliable nature of wind energy, there have also been concerns about the unreliable nature of large-scale solar and the cost of connecting it to the NEM.
But First Solar’s regional general manager Jack Curtis – whose company is the largest constructor of utility-scale solar in the world, including three-quarters of Australia’s big solar projects – said solar was a better match for energy demand than wind.
“Large-scale wind is inherently more uncorrelated with load because solar shines during the day when there is more generation need and solar is more predictable,” Mr Curtis told The Australian Financial Review.
He said the issues about intermittency with both wind and solar were surmountable, saying renewable energy could be properly embedded into the NEM. He pointed to the Californian experience where solar now accounts to close to 50 per cent of generation.
“While renewables are inherently intermittent and don’t provide thermal or despatchable capacity, that can be managed very effectively provided there is a degree of thought put into how the market is designed and how you balance it in the overall [energy] portfolio,” he said.
There are also big hopes for utility-scale solar once battery technology is commercially viable.
First Solar built AGL Energy’s $439 million 155 megawatt solar plant at Broken Hill and Nyngan in NSW, which received $166 million in taxpayer funding from ARENA.
ARENA has already allocated $101 million to the $164 million 56 megawatt Moree solar farm.
The federal government bodies – the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency – have allocated $350 million to give a legs-up to large-scale solar projects.
ARENA is also assessing 20 short-listed projects, including Origin Energy’s 106.8 megawatt Darling Downs solar farm in Queensland and Infigen Energy’s 42.4 megawatt Manildra solar farm in NSW, for an eligible $100 million in funding.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is also offering $250 million in debt financing to the same projects.
ARENA chief executive Ivor Frischknecht said the taxpayer funds would help bring down the cost of large-scale solar plants to achieve cost parity between large-scale solar and wind energy by 2020. It would also encourage future private investment in the sector.
“While the costs of large-scale solar PV are decreasing, this financing boost will help Australian projects move down the cost curve, in line with international trends,” he said.
Originally posted on: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/largescale-solar-the-next-wave-of-renewable-energy-20160727-gqeo4k#ixzz4FkiIsmLp
