Fossil fuels and renewable sources are not mutually exclusive as energy sources - in fact they can go hand in hand, according to CRC for Coal in Sustainable Development (CCSD) chief executive, Frank van Schagen.
"Australia has sunlight, and it has coal and gas - in vast amounts. We can combine them to create ideal energy solutions in ways simply unavailable to most other countries on earth,” he says.
"Solar thermal is proving to be reliable technology. With increasing adoption, it will become more competitive with fossil fuels and this report is a wake-up call to Australia not to neglect the opportunity to combine two of our greatest resources
"The smartest way we can take advantage of it is by hybridising CST with our vast resources of fossil energy, to ensure our power supply is clean, reliable and cost-effective."
CCSD has an on-going technology assessment program that examines all options that offer opportunities for large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Among the most promising uses for solar thermal power is to provide supplementary steam energy to bolster the efficiency of Australia’s 39 coal-fired power plants and cut greenhouse emissions, says the study's lead author, Dr Louis Wibberley.
It can also provide the low-grade energy needed to filter CO2 out of the exhaust gases of existing coal and gas-fired power stations for long-term storage.
Sunlight can also be used to re-form natural gas and coal seam methane, to produce clean energy, industrial chemicals and badly-needed transport fuels.
But despite early research progress in developing efficient solar thermal technology, Australia has neglected it as an option in the past decade.
The global situation has now changed dramatically with solar thermal forecast to become cost-competitive with fossil fuels by the time 5000 megawatts of new solar power are installed in India, Egypt, Morocco and Mexico by 2013, according to CSIRO.
"Australia is one of the world's three top solar regions, with two thirds of the continent receiving over 18 MJ of sunlight per square metre," Wibberley says.
"What makes solar thermal particularly attractive is the fact that it integrates very well with existing technologies including coal, gas, biomass, photovoltaics and wind power.
"It is suitable for base and peak-load grid power, and for distributed or stand-alone generation. In contrast to photovoltaic and wind electricity, the energy from solar thermal can be stored far more cheaply in the form of heat, and so provide more continuous power."
A major solar-coal trial is taking place at Liddell power station in NSW by Solar Heat and Power for extra steam production. This is now being expanded to produce 6,000 MWh per year (saving around 6000 tonnes of CO2 annually).
CSIRO's National Solar Research Facility in Newcastle under Dr Wes Stein is exploring the use of CST to reform methane from natural or coalbed gas to make synthesis gas (CO + CO2 + H2) for power generation (Solar-Gas), industrial chemical or transport fuel production, or for generating hydrogen for power production. This has the added bonus of taking off the CO2 in a pure stream for long-term sequestration.
"Solar thermal can also provide a valuable source of low-grade heat to drive the post-combustion capture of CO2 from existing power stations - which is an additional opportunity for the technology," Wibberley says.
Of the various concentrated solar thermal (CST) technologies, parabolic troughs are under the most active development worldwide and appear to offer the best economics which a carbon price would make more favourable still.
