Improving Renewables

Australia’s transition to a lower emissions power grid has seen the rapid implementation of variable renewable energy (VRE) generation from wind or solar PV systems. At the same time, existing coal plants have been reaching their end of life and are progressively retiring. While this ongoing transition contributes to lowering the CO2 emissions in the power generation sector, the variability in power from VRE renewables makes matching supply and demand a challenge and it raises concerns around the reliability of a system with declining fossil fired dispatchable generators. A significant share of total generation needs to be dispatchable, ie provided by power generators that can raise or lower power output on demand. CSP with thermal storage is one of a range of options for achieving this with renewable energy.

Renewable energy power plants that can vary output (up or down) at the command of the operator.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicts the retirement of the majority of the National Electricity Market’s (NEM) coal generation fleet over the next 20 years. This will happen progressively as plants reach the end of their working lives. The replacement of power currently produced by coal plants will have to be met by a combination of VRE systems, energy storage and backup supply and peaking.

CSP with energy storage is one of the most cost effective dispatchable renewable technologies available for longer durations of storage that are essential for the future grid. Battery systems are competitive for short duration smoothing, however, for 10 hours or more, CSP generates electricity at less than one third of the cost of PV battery systems.System-wide modelling of the uptake of new generation technology confirms the role of CSP in a least cost low emissionsgeneration mix1. Using realistic performance and configuration assumptions and AEMO’s 2018 ISP costs, modelling suggests that in order to achieve a reliable minimum-cost energy mix, 5.4 GW of CSP plants should be installed by 2040 in New South Wales alone. The Quasar Energy CSP plant is the first step in establishing a pipeline of such projects.