The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism has published a discussion paper on large-scale deployment of solar power in Australia following a roundtable held earlier in the year.

 

In the report, the Federal Government acknowledges that Australia has 'some of the best solar resources in the world' and that large-scale deployment of solar power generators has the potential to significantly reduce emissions as part of a diversified portfolio of new energy supply technologies.

 

The report identifies the major advantages of solar energy as the following:

  • Australia has some of the highest levels of solar radiation in the world.
  • There are no emissions from solar power production.
  • Although the solar resource is intermittent, the output of solar electricity plants tends to correlate with daytime electricity demand.
  • Photovoltaic technology is scalable from the micro household scale to utility scales.
  • Solar thermal power with thermal storage or integrated with fossil fuel powergeneration has a smooth output profile compared to wind and PV and can be combined with storage and dispatched with a high degree of predictability.
  • There is strong community support for solar energy


The full report can be downloaded here