Here is a sad story!
Have the Cloncurry people been duped by the company? As I said in my initial article, I can’t help thinking of the Simpson’s episode about the monorail.
My take on this? Cover the panels up at night you idiots!!! A few hundred shade sails. That’s all. And the glare in the day? Plant a blocking forest along the sight line but far enough away to avoid shade.
Below is the state of play as reported in the Courier Mail.
Cloncurry in the state’s northwest was meant to be the centrepiece of a radical $30 million plan to use solar energy to heat water and generate electricity, cutting carbon emissions and reliance on diesel – and eventually taking the town off the grid.
But The Courier-Mail can reveal that three years after its launch, instead of a forest of 8000 mirrors the project consists only of four test panels and a fake tower behind a locked gate.
It was forecast that by now, a “groundbreaking” 10-megawatt solar thermal power plant would be using steam from water heated in a graphite block to drive a turbine to generate electricity. It should have been supplying power to the homes of 4828 residents.
The Government, which faces criticism over a series of expensive infrastructure blunders, is blaming the project’s failure on concerns about light pollution.
Boffins are now looking into concerns that residents could be exposed to blinding light from the plant.
Energy Minister Stephen Robertson has broken the official commercial-in-confidence line of the state’s commercial partner, Sydney-based Lloyd Energy Storage, to reveal the technological glitch.
“There was a glare issue exceeding what they consider to be appropriate levels,” he said. “If the glare issue cannot be addressed the project will be moved somewhere else in Cloncurry or it will not proceed.”
The State Government earmarked $7 million for the project. Of that, $900,000 had been spent so far, he said.
“We are talking about a sunrise industry here, no pun intended,” Mr Robertson said.
“Sometimes we’ve got to take a risk with taxpayers’ money to prove up this new technology.”
He admitted the “timelines had blown out”, and said the University of Melbourne had been commissioned by Ergon Energy and Lloyd Energy to prepare an independent report into “glare issues”.
He said the report would be finalised and publicly released later this month.
He could not say if it was the four panels on the outskirts of Cloncurry that had been deemed “too glary” or those of another project. The company is trialling the same technology at Lake Cargelligo in NSW.
Premier Anna Bligh touted the project for Cloncurry in November 2007, aiming to take a personal interest. Lloyd Energy and the SMEC Group were to contribute $24 million.
Subject to feasibility studies, the system was expected to be suitable for any remote town or towns on the fringe of grid power, such as Thargomindah, Quilpie, Cunnamulla, Normanton, Charleville or Julia Creek.
