Geothermal Sunrise

Clean Energy Finance Corporation wins seed capital $10 billion over 5 years. Will it Perform?

As a part of the Federal Government's recently announced Carbon Tax package was a provision to set up a new, independent body called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). This body will have as much as $10 billion, over five years, to invest in clean energy projects in Australia. The government claims that this funding is double what a similar institution in the UK started with, which was $4.5 billion.

At least half of the funding will be earmarked to green power projects, but will exclude nuclear; biofuels from native forest wood waste; and Carbon Capture and storage projects. The remaining amount will be shared between renewable energy, energy efficiency and low emissions technology. It is planned that the fund will be run on commercial grounds by an independent board of banking, investment and clean energy and technology experts. The Corporation is expected to be self sustaining by mid 2018, when (hopefully) it will be making enough money from its investments.

The idea, if it works, promises to be a significant boost to environmental entrepreneurs and companies that have so far struggled to attract the necessary risk capital to launch new ventures. However the track record of many of these government sponsored initiatives has not been so great. Big announcements are made about money being available, but when the details are released it is often too hard for the companies to qualify for the money. For instance some schemes insist that the recipient provide matching funds, or even two dollars for every dollar provided under the scheme. While details are not yet available on how the scheme will work, it has been said that the CEFC will act more like a venture capital fund and instead of providing grants will take equity in the company.

So, what types of projects might the CEFC invest in?

Wave Power

Oceanlinx

Australia’s south coast from Western Australia across to Victoria is recognised has having some of the most powerful and consistent wave energy in the world. The beauty of this type of energy is that unlike solar, it operates 24 hours a day, so it can be a good base load replacement. There are a number of Australian companies already operating in this field.

Oceanlinx is a private company based in Sydney with a test site in Port Kembla. The core patented technology is an Oscillating Water Column device that can sit directly on the ocean floor if in shallow water or can be moored offshore in deeper waters. Oceanlinx claim that a key advantage of their system is that the electricity generating turbine and all the moving parts are out of the water, thus easier to install and maintain. The company is one out of only two companies in the world that have built and tested full-scale devices.

Another Australian company in this area is Carnegie Wave Energy from Western Australia. Carnegie wave (CWE) is listed on the Australian Stock exchange (ASX) and take a significantly different approach, in that they use special pumps to capture the wave energy to create a very high pressure water stream that is fed into on-shore hydro electric turbines, that in turn generate the electricity. They can also use this high pressure water stream to desalinate water.

Both approaches will have their advantages and disadvantages in different circumstances. Both companies have already spent many millions of dollars, such is the scale and cost of these projects, but not only can they help bring a clean energy future much closer, but can also be a valuable export earner by licensing the technology to overseas companies.

Large Scale Solar

Solar Array

There have been a lot of false starts in this area, but the challenge of overcoming the technological hurdles is so compelling, especially in a sun drenched place like Australia, that companies want to keep trying. Silex Systems, Australia’s only solar panel manufacturer is about to start on a two megawatt demonstration plant near Mildura, and contingent upon the success of that, hopes to have a 100 Megawatt plant operating in 2014. By way of reference 1 megawatt of power is enough for approximately 600 to 800 Australian homes.

Rooftop Solar

Technique Solar

Like a lot of new technology, especially when it’s subject to a government grant, rooftop solar has been way oversold, and indeed some of the earlier installations are certainly not worth the money. But there are some encouraging developments. Technique Solar in Melbourne claims to have a far more efficient unit: it combines power generation and water heating in the same unit, highly efficient as between 25 to 40 per cent of household energy is used to heat water; and as this solar panel is water cooled it maintains a much higher than average efficiency. And, the Technique solar unit is roughly one quarter of the size of conventional units. The company hopes to be in commercial production towards the end of this year.

Nano Solar

The CSIRO and the University of Melbourne have demonstrated an early stage technology that can be printed on Glass, steel and plastic forming an ultra thin transparent coating made up of nano sized solar cells (one millionth of a millimetre). At the moment its efficiency is less than 50 per cent of current solar cells, but with time and perhaps money from the CEFC, the technology could be available within five to ten years.

Geothermal (Hot Rocks)

The traditional approach to this technology has been to find a place where the geology is suitable (special high heat producing granites laying deep below the Earth's surface) and drill holes up to four or even five kilometres deep. Often the right sites are rather remote plus the challenges of drilling so deep into very hot rocks are also very great. Geodynamics Limited is an Australian company in the forefront of this type of large scale project.

Another approach is taken by a company from Melbourne, Hot Dry Rocks, which has a vision of lots of smaller plants of say 500 kilowatt to 1 megawatt plants supplying 5 to 600 houses. These plants need holes as shallow as 600 metres in the right area in order to work.

But wait, there's more

There are quite a few more ideas, such as Energy from waste using plasma gasification, which has the advantage of using non recyclable municipal waste as its fuel, so not only does it generate clean energy, but is saves landfill. Then there's bio-fuels using plants that can be grown with little or no fertiliser, on land that is not suitable for food crops or using fungus to enable process of biomass (vegetable waste matter).

Australian scientists and businesses are in the fore front of these fields, so not only can we benefit from the direct advantages of the technology, but also the jobs and earnings from their export to the world. so hopefully this new body the CEFC will make this a reality.


For more information, here are links to companies and technologies mentioned:


Written by Gavan Farley

Lead photo: Venus shines on the steam flow at Habanero, courtesy Geodynamics

PV Array image by theregeneration via Flickr Creative Commons