A time of opportunity for Concentrating Solar Thermal Power in Australia?
- Details
- Created on Monday, 08 April 2013 13:07
- Written by AUSTELA
AUSTELA's role is to help improve the investment environment for Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP) in Australia, by improving access for energy market investors and decision-makers to information about CSP.
AUSTELA's new quarterly newsletter is designed to provide a brief snapshot of notable CSP industry developments of potential relevance for Australia.
This first AUSTELA newsletter comes at a challenging, yet encouraging, time for renewable energy in Australia; a time when renewable energy development is rapidly gaining momentum globally.
2012 saw further evidence of the dramatic changes confronting the Australian and international energy markets as the move to renewable energy accelerates. The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, in its inaugural Australian Energy Technology Assessment (August 2012), noted that Australia is facing a very different energy future, in which renewable energy will play a major role and is likely to be the lowest cost form of power generation.
Research from AEMO, the Australian Solar Institute/IT Power, University of New South Wales Centre for Environmental and Energy Markets and others – consistent with the findings of international research - showed the important role and high value potential of CSP in Australia's energy system.
Against this backdrop of accelerating change and of opportunity for CSP, AUSTELA thought it timely to note – and celebrate – 100 years of concentrating solar thermal power generation, with a look back in time to the Al Meadi parabolic trough plant, commissioned in 1913, and a review of one of the newest - the Termosolar Borges CSP-biomass hybrid plant recently commissioned in Spain.