Solar and Geothermal Energy

Archived News, Posted on 25 May 2011

GREEN DEALS: Storing solar energy

A coalition of welfare, industry, unions and climate change NGOs is putting pressure on the federal government to adopt some of the recommendations from the task force on energy efficiency delivered last year to help households and small business manage energy bills. The group, which includes the Australian Council of Social Services, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Clean Energy Council, the Energy Efficiency Council, the Property Council, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and The Climate Institute, is arguing for targeted support for households most at need, and building a national scheme that harmonises state-based initiatives and removes some of the red tape and regulatory obstacles to energy efficiency projects.

The government has been sitting on the task force report for more than six months, but it has hinted that it would be rolling out some of the initiatives at the same time as the carbon pricing policy, to help defray some of the costs. The task-force report – which noted Australia lags far behind is OECD rivals – identified potential savings of $50-$243 per year from 2012-2030 for households, and of between $10,608-$23,712 per year for medium-sized businesses. One of its principal recommendations was to require energy retailers to find ways of using energy efficiency to reduce the bills of customers by up to 3 per cent a year.

The group wants the government to establish a national Energy Savings Initiative that would place a requirement on energy retailers to pursue and facilitate energy efficiency projects across the economy. The groups says this would reduce the need for new network and generation investments, and lower scheme costs by integrating state-based schemes into one national scheme. It also wants targeted support for high-needs households funded through revenue raised from the carbon price. It says this support should focus on households at risk of energy poverty and communities with poor infrastructure and high costs, and should be scaled up to reach between 250,000 to 500,000 homes by 2020.


Hot news for geothermal

A US-based start-up company says it has developed technology that could allow the heat from deep-lying hot rocks to be extracted without the need for fracturing and water cooling. According to the web-site Technology Review, the company GTherm proposes an approach that includes installation of a solid-state heat exchanger at the bottom of the well that can more efficiently draw heat from surrounding rock with the help of a highly conductive grout encasing the heat exchanger. Fluid is sent down the well in a closed loop that carries the heat back to the surface, where it creates steam that drives electricity-generating turbines. “We’re basically a heat pump on steroids,” CEO Michael Parrella, told the website. The company hopes to have demonstration plants in place as early as 2012. Australian geothermal companies have found numerous areas where deep lying super-heated granite offer the potential to generate baseload energy, but are still working on proving extraction methods which have mostly been focused on fracturing techniques.

Published 8:46 AM, 25 May 2011
Updated 8:56 AM, 25 May 2011

Giles Parkinson
climatespectator.com.au