Future Solar Energy Project: the Victorian 154 MW plant.

Future Solar Energy project: The Australian Government is planning to commission the world's largest photovoltaic solar cell power station in the world which will produce 154 MW of electricity. The project will cost $au 420 million of which the Australian Government is contributing $au 75 million under the Federal Government’s Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund (LETDF). The project will be undertaken by Solar Systems. It is to be situated near the town of Mildura in Victoria, Australia.

This project will be made of repeating units similar to the one in the image. Each unit consists of a series of mirrored surfaces and a tower in which high performance solar cells, originally developed for use on satellites, are located. The mirrors reflect the sunlight onto the tower and the solar cells generate electricity. There are sufficient mirrors in each repeating unit to intensify the sunlight up to 500 times. The solar cells are specially designed to operate best under these conditions. The mirrors track the movement of the sun so that the power plant remains productive during all daylight hours.

The benefits of this project are numerous. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the project will reduce them by an estimated 396,000 tonnes every year. Maintenance of the plant is also another draw card. Since the majority of it is made from common building materials they will be cheap to replace if they break. The most costly part of the plant is the high efficiency solar panels in the towers. The area of solar paneling in each tower is only 0.23 square metres but is capable of producing the equivalent electricity of up to 345 square metres of regular solar panels. Additionally, the panels can be upgraded as new technology emerges, with the rest of the power plant needing no modifications.

This project is also expandable since it is modular in design. Hopefully the first of many similar projects, this power plant will drive down the cost of solar provided grid electricity to consumers in Australia. Read more about this project here.