'Distinct' solar-storage option providers plot 300MW/ 3.6 GWh Australia project

• A 1,200 hectare website in South Australia has been safeguarded by a programmer wishing to utilize it to construct a 300MW solar power website with 3.6 GWh of energy storage space, based upon an unique technology solution.

Europe-headquartered renewables company Photon Energy is functioning to present the technology created by Australian business RayGen. It incorporates a type of concentrating solar power (CSP) + solar photovoltaics (PV) crossbreed that RayGen calls 'PV Ultra', coupled to a long-duration energy storage tech dubbed 'thermal hydro'.

PV Ultra produces both power and also warm using both PV components and tilted mirror towers (heliostats) to create CSP. The thermal hydro part is therefore called, since instead of using water reservoirs at various heights like a pumped hydro plant, it makes use of reservoirs at various temperature levels, one hot, one cold, to save energy: the PV as well as grid electricity cools one, the CSP warms the other.

The difference in temperature level is after that made use of to create electrical energy utilizing an Organic Rankine Cycle engine, utilizing thermodynamic cycles to transform steam right into power with a roundtrip efficiency in the region of 70%.

Photon Energy, which has created as well as operates and maintains PV plants in Europe and also Australia, introduced its calculated partnership with RayGen in April 2020, teasing the potential grand-scale their projects can attain and the enabling of night and day renewable energy that could result.

The technology has already been made use of in a 1MWac demonstration plant in the Australian state of Victoria, in operation for six years so far. Photon Energy is creating multiple possible websites for the technology it referred to as "unique," as well as earlier this year RayGen closed a Series C funding round for an additional project in Victoria, this time of 4MW solar with 3MW/ 50MWh energy storage.

That AU$ 55 million financing round was shut after the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) added AU$ 15 million, along with private investment, as well as followed ARENA assisting to fund a feasibility study. Investors in the round consisted of Australian energy significant seller and also generator AGL, Schlumberger New Energy, Chevron Technology Ventures and also Equinor Ventures.

That project, in the Victorian town of Carwarp, is currently incomplete and also results from go on the internet in the middle of next year.

On the South Australia project, Photon Energy claimed that initial layouts see it being developed with 300MW of solar to a 150MW grid link. Although in previous press releases Photon and also RayGen had actually claimed the technology is targeted at supplying as much as concerning 17 hrs of storage space, today Photon stated the South Australia project's 3.6 GWh storage capacity would certainly equate to more like 24-hour of storage duration.

The process of getting allowing as well as grid connection has currently begun and also Photon Energy intends to obtain its giga-plant to the ready-to-build stage by the end of 2023.