The increased demand of electrical energy by the consumers in currently increasing on a daily basis in Australia because of the increase in the number of people who use actively using the energy and also the increased number of electrical devices. This is currently a crisis in the supply of reliable and sufficient electricity to satisfy the electricity needs for Australia. In order to produce enough electrical energy to satisfy the electricity demand in Australia, there is requirement of improving the production by primarily concentrating on the renewable energy sources such as solar energy which is an environmentally friendly source of energy. This rise in the electrical energy generation by non-renewable energy sources have resulted in environmental degradation. The major reason for selecting the solar energy for this research is because solar energy is the major type of renewable source of energy in Australia.
Due to the increasing cost of fossil fuels and global warming, renewable sources of energy have become a significant direction for numerous countries including Australia. The government evaluated the Renewable Energy Target of 20% of the total electrical energy in Australia to originate from renewable sources of energy in 2009. Some of the technologies that can be adopted to improve the generation of electrical energy include the concentrated solar power technology such as solar power tower, enclosed trough, parabolic trough, and dish stirling.
The consumption and production of energy in Australia primarily depends on the fossil fuels and this has made the state to the largest contributor to the carbon dioxide emission globally. The coal and crude oil has conquered the energy market of the state for numerous years. The composition of energy consumed is different from the generated energy since more than two-thirds of the generated energy in Australia is exported. Nevertheless, the prospective of other sources of renewable energy like tidal, solar, wave, and geothermal have been proved to be low because their technologies are not sufficiently developed in Australia. In case the technological and economic matters involved in the renewable energy establishment have been solved, then these sources of energy may be used as source of alternative electrical energy to assist the state reduce the greenhouse gases emissions (Adaramola, 2014).
There have been numerous steps that have been implemented so as to minimize the emission of carbon dioxide in the country, for example, there was the institution of the carbon price and carbon tax so as to make it easy for companies to reduce their carbon emission. There is presently a crisis in the reliable and sufficient electrical energy supply in Australia as well as other states. Sufficient electrical energy can be generated to satisfy the increasing demand for electrical energy by focusing on the environmentally friendly renewable energy sources (Adaramola, 2014). The energy crisis can be resolved by swapping to the source of solar energy as a main energy source as an alternative energy source. The first section of this feasibility study deals with different types of solar energy as well as the technical variance between different solar energy plants. After that, the feasibility study determines the technical details of the solar power plants which should be set up in Australia (Ahmed, 2011).
The main objective of this research paper is to assess the potential and feasibility of solar energy supplying electrical energy needs in Australia. The other objectives include:
Energies consumed by human beings can be categorized as either renewable sources of energy or nonrenewable sources of energy. The source of renewable energy includes geothermal energy from the heat of the sun, biomass energy from the organic plant, wind energy, and solar energy. Renewable energy in Australia evaluates the efforts that have been put in place or are currently being implemented in Australia to expand and quantify the use of renewable sources of energy in the thermal energy, as fuel in transport, and in the production of electricity. Renewable energy can be produced from the renewable source such as solar thermal, solar PV, geothermal, landfill gas, hydro, and wind (Azad, 2016).
There has been a significant growth in the production of renewable electric energy in the 21st century in Australia. The total renewable energy consumption in the country stands at 5.9% of the total consumption of energy in 2015, compared to the 4.3% energy consumption in 2012. It is approximated that the total renewable energy produced in Australia stands at 35,000GW in 2015, which is about 14.6% of the accumulative energy generated in the country. Biofuel represents 3.6%, solar hot water represents 3.8%, biogas represents 4.7%, solar PV represents 5.1%, wind energy presents 10.7%, hydropower represents 19.2%, and biomass represents 53% of the total consumption of renewable energy in Australia in 2015 (Bassam, 2013). This represents 61.3% of the total consumption of renewable energy in Australia in that particular year. The figure below shows the energy use in Australia:
Figure 1: Energy use in Australia (Lyster & Bradbrook, 2017)
From the figure above, the major source of energy that is currently being consumed in Australia is black coal and crude oil despite these energy sources being the greatest producers of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The electrical energy is still low due to the technologies involved which are still not well established in the country.
Just like in other states, the establishment of renewable energy sources in Australia has been promoted through government energy policy effected in response to concerns regarding the economic stimulus, energy independence, and climatic change. The major policy was implemented in 2001 to promote the development of large-scale renewable energy was the mandatory target of renewable energy which was increased to 41,000Wh of generation of renewable energy from the power station in 2010. The major hydropower plant in Australia is the Snowy Mountains Scheme was established between 1949 and 1974 and entail 16 dams and 7 main power stations with a total generation capacity of 3,800MW. Between 2007 and 2008, hydropower denotes 43% of the total generated renewable energy in the country and between 2014 and 2015, this percentage dropped to 39% of the total renewable energy generated (Blanco, 2016).
In Australia, the accumulative 15 wind energy projects have the generation capacity of 2,112MW which are either to be constructed, are operational or are under construction as of 2017 July. The sources of wind energy use the flow of air through the turbines which provide the mechanical power during its rotation to the electric generator coupled to it. Many individual wind turbines are then combined together to a transmission network of electrical power. Offshore winds are steadier and stronger than the onshore winds, nevertheless, the construction and maintenance of offshore wind turbine systems are normally higher. Onshore wind systems sources of electrical energy that are very competitive and cheaper than other sources of nonrenewable of energy like coal and gas plants (Bloss, 2013).
The total installed capacity was 1880MW as of 2010 October which included projects under construction. The wind energy production in South Australia is growing very fast since the region is suitable for wind farms. Therefore, a lot of wind energy is being produced in South Australia compared to any other territory or state. The wind energy generated in South Australia increased to 30% of the total generated electrical energy by the end of 2011 with a total of 71 wind farms. Geothermal energy in Australia is not utilized as a form of energy despite the potential and known location within the country which has detectable geothermal activities (Boer, 2012).
The geothermal energy generates heat from molten core composed of liquid in a rock of very high temperature. The circulating geothermal heat in the rock is then transferred to the water reservoir situated underground which may then be applied in the generation of electrical energy. There have been numerous explorations in Australia which were meant to test the existence of geothermal activities of high temperature in the region. It has been proved Australia has enough geothermal energy which is capable of supplying electrical energy for about 450 years. Southern Australia State is anticipated to dictate in the geothermal energy generation sector since 12 companies have submitted their applications already for the geothermal energy exploration (Boxwell, 2010).
Currently, there are numerous companies which are exploring 141 regions and are expected to invest in the geothermal sector in Australia. Australia has sufficient geothermal energy to contribute electrical energy for about 450 years according to an estimate by the Centre for International Economics (Boyle, 2012). The figure below shows the position of renewable energy plants in Australia:
Figure 2: Position of renewable energy plants in Australia (Hossain & Mahmud, 2017)
From the figure above, the sources of renewable energy are have not yet been fully explored as a result of the technologies involved in the energy generation from these sources such as solar energy. Biogas is also used for the generation of electrical energy directly through the burning of bioproducts such as sugar cane waste for the generation of thermal power in sugar mills. Biogas can also be used for the generation of steam for industrial purposes, heating, and cooking. Biogas consumption represented 26.1% of the total consumption of renewable energy in Australia in 2015 (Brownson, 2013).
The solar energy plant function by converting the energy from the sunlight into electrical energy either indirectly using concentrated solar power, or directly using photovoltaics, or a combination of the two. The solar energy has astonishing potential to power the everyday lives due to the continuously improving technologies. The major types of technologies of solar energy include the concentrating solar power and the photovoltaic. When the sunlight shines onto a solar panel, the photons from the sun are absorbed by the cells in the panel, which produces an electric field across the layers resulting in the flow of electricity (Bundschuh, 2017).
Solar energy is a radiant heat and sunlight from the sun which can be harnessed by the use of technologies such as heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture, molten salt power plants, and artificial photosynthesis. This is a significant renewable energy source and its technologies can be characterized broadly depending on how they distribute and capture solar energy or convert it into solar power as either active solar or passive solar. The techniques of passive solar include orienting a structure to the sun, designing spaces that naturally circulate air, the selection of materials with properties of light-dispersion or favourably thermal mass. The techniques of active solar entails the application of concentrated solar power, photovoltaic systems, and solar water heating to harness the energy (Chwieduk, 2014).
Photovoltaic cells convert light energy from the sunlight into an electrical current by the use of the photovoltaic effect. The photovoltaic cells were previously solely used as an electrical energy source for both medium and small sized applications such as isolated households powered by an off-grid rooftop PV system and a calculator powered by a single solar cell. Commercially, the concentrated solar power plants were developed for the first time in the 1980s. Concentrated solar thermal which is also known as concentrated solar power used the tracking system and mirror or lenses to concentrate sunlight and then use the resultant heat in the generation of electrical energy from conventional turbines driven by steam (Yan, 2018).
Hybrid systems combine both the photovoltaic cells and the concentrated solar power system with other methods of electrical energy generation such as biogas, wind, and diesel. This combination is capable of reducing the consumption of non-renewable fuel and the fluctuation nature of solar power or modulating output power as a demand function. There is an absorption of solar radiation by the land surface of the earth, which covers approximately 71% of the atmosphere and globe. The potential solar energy that may be significant to human differs from the quantity of solar energy near the surface of the earth due to factors like available land, cloud cover, time available, and geography. Geography determines the potential of solar energy since regions nearer the equator have the greater quantity of solar radiation (Borenstein, 2018).
The photovoltaic technology converts energy from the sunlight into electricity directly. Photovoltaics involves the conversion of light into electrical energy through the use of semiconductor materials which display a photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic cells normally use solar panels which are composed of numerous solar cells that produce electrical energy. When sunlight strikes the PV module, made of semiconductor materials, there will be stripping of electrons from their atomic bonds. The installation of PV may be wall mounted, rooftop mounted, or ground-mounted. The major advantage of solar PV is that once it is installed, its operation produces no greenhouse gas emission and no pollution (Department, 2011). The figure below shows the operation of solar PV system:
Figure 3: Operation of solar PV system (Magee, 2018)
The figure above shows the operations and systems required during the process of solar energy generation. The major components required include solar panels, transformers, storage unit, and inverter.
Solar cells generate direct current electrical energy from sunlight which can be used to recharge a battery or for powering any electrical equipment. The power generation using photovoltaic can be done through the use of solar panels which are composed of numerous solar cells possessing photovoltaic materials. Solar copper cables can be used in combining the modules. The manufacturing of photovoltaic arrays and solar cells have considerably advanced in the recent years because of the growing demand for renewable sources of energy. The generation of power by solar photovoltaic has long been considered as a clean energy technology which draws upon the widely distributed and most plentiful renewable source of energy in the planet (Diesendorf, 2010).
The capacity factor of the photovoltaics is determined as optimum output power under standardized conditions. The real output power at any given instance may be greater than or less than this rate of standardized value deepening on the weather conditions, time of day, and geographical location. The traditional photovoltaic system aims to optimize the duration they are facing the sun. Solar trackers can attain this by moving the panels to follow the sunlight. Static mounted PV systems can be maximized through evaluation of the path of the sun. The PV panels are normally positioned at a latitude tilt which is an angle equivalent to the latitude, however, there can be the improvement in their performance by varying the angle during winter or summer (Dovers, 2009).
Just like with other devices of semiconductor material, the temperature above the room temperature minimizes the photovoltaic performance. Numerous solar panels can be positioned vertically above one another in a tower, and the tower can be horizontally turned as a whole and every additional panel be positioned horizontally. Such a tower panel can track the exact position of the sun. The conversion efficiency which is commonly known as the electrical efficiency is a contributing factor in the selection of a PV system. An electrical efficiency of a photovoltaic system is a physical property which denotes how much electrical power a cell can generate for a particular insolation. The real efficiency is determined by the spectrum, light intensity, junction temperature, output current, and voltage (Hossain & Mahmud, 2017).
This technology of solar power generation is also known as concentrating solar power and concentrated solar thermal which uses lenses or mirrors to concentrate the solar thermal energy of huge regions of sunlight onto a minute region. Electrical energy is produced when the light concentrated is converted into heat which propels a heat engine coupled to a thermochemical reaction or electrical power generator. The concentrated thermal energy can be stored and then used in the production of electricity when it is needed during the night of day. The two commercialized technologies of concentrated solar power include the parabolic troughs and power towers. Other technologies of concentrating solar power include the dish engine and compact liners Fresnel reflector (Emissions, 2015).
The world market has been dominated by the parabolic trough plants which at one time accounted for 90% of the concentrating solar power. In many instances, the concentrating solar power technologies cannot compete with the PV solar panels on price which has gone through serious development in the near past as a result of much smaller costs of operation and falling prices. The concentrating solar panels usually require huge quantity of direct solar radiation which is normally covered by the cloud which is opposite with the PV panels which have the capability of generating electrical energy from diffuse radiation. The major advantage of concentrating solar power over the photovoltaic panels is that a concentrating solar power can store the solar energy heat in molten salts as a thermal technology operating as conventional power block (Enteria, 2018).
This enables the concentrating solar power plants to produce electrical energy whenever it is required making the system to be a dispatchable form of solar. This feature is specifically significant in regions where there is the high form of solar already since an evening peak can be intensified as photovoltaic ramps down during sunset. There is currently some research which sought to investigate the possibility of using the concentrating solar power not only as a source of electrical energy but also for the production of solar fuels hence, making solar to be a completely portable form of energy in the future (Farmer, 2012). This research seeks to use the solar heat of the concentrating solar power as a catalyst for thermochemistry in splitting molecules of water to create hydrogen from solar energy without any emission of carbon. By breaking both the carbon dioxide and water, the fuel for jet used in flying commercial aeroplanes can also be produced using solar energy and not from fossil fuels (Foster, 2009).
The concentrating solar power systems were initially made a competitor to the PV panels but without energy storage. The concentrating solar power was later made the dispatchable form of energy in 2015 with 3 hours to 12 hours of thermal energy storage. Currently, concentrating solar power systems are the cheapest form of dispatchable solar at a scale of utility which is approximately ten times cheaper compared to the combination of photovoltaic panels with the storage battery. There have been some improvements in the current technology of the concentrating solar power such as the inclusion of the tracking system which focuses on a huge region of sunlight onto a minute region (Gesellschaft, 2017).
The solar concentrators used in the concentrating solar power systems can normally be used in the cooling and heating during the industrial process such as solar air conditioning. The concentrating technologies that are currently being implemented in the concentrating solar power systems include solar power tower, Fresnel reflector, dish, and parabolic trough. Different types of concentrators generate different corresponding varying thermodynamic efficiencies and different peak temperatures, as a result of differences in the manner in which they track the sun and then focusing the light (Garg, 2011). Their concentrating solar power technologies are discussed below:
A dish engine or dish Stirling system is composed of a lone parabolic reflector which concentrates light onto the positioned receiver at the focal point of the reflector. The reflector trails the sun along two axes. The receiver working fluid is heated between 250oC and 700oC and then used to generate power by a Stirling engine (Luque & Hegedus, 2018). The figure below shows the dish, Stirling:
Figure 4: Dish Stirling (MUKERJEE & THAKUR, 2017)
The figure above shows the typical dish stirling which is also another technology that can be implemented to improve the quantity of solar energy produced so as to satisfy the electrical energy demand of the country.
The system of parabolic dish provides a high efficiency of the solar-to-electric dish and their nature of modular provides scalability. Stirling energy system is a project management and systems integration company that is currently developing equipment for renewable energy power plant of utility-scale and distributed systems of electricity generation (Heinberg, 2016).
These reflectors are made on numerous flat and thin strips of a mirror for the purposes of concentrating sunlight onto tubes through which there will be pumping of working fluid. The flat and thin mirrors enable more reflective surface in the similar space compared to the parabolic reflectors hence capturing extra available sunlight, and they are less expensive compared to the parabolic reflectors. This reflector is sometimes considered as a technology with the poorest output compared to the other systems. The efficiency of the cost of this technology is what has led to its usage by numerous people instead of other technologies with higher ratings of output (Horigome, 2012).
In this design, the system of solar thermal encapsulates within a glasshouse which resembles a greenhouse. This design creates an environment that is protected to sustain those elements can adversely affect the efficiency and reliability of the solar thermal. Solar reflecting mirrors that are curved and lightweight are suspended by wires from the top of the glasshouse. The mirrors are positioned by a system of single axis tracking so as to retrieve the maximum quantity of sunlight. The mirrors focus and concentrate the sunlight on a network of motionless steel pipes which are also suspended from the structure of glasshouse. Water is conveyed in the entire length of the steel pipe, which is boiled to produce steam during the application of extreme solar radiation. Covering the mirrors from the wind enables them to attain higher rates of temperature and thwarts dust from building up on the mirrors (IBP, 2015).
This system is composed of an array of tracking reflectors which have the dual axis and concentrates sunlight on a middle receiver positioned at the top of the tower. The received possesses a fluid for heat transfer which can be made of molten salt or steam of water. The receiver working fluid is heated to the temperature between 500oC and 1000oC and then used as a source of heat for the heat storage system of generation of power. The major advantage of the solar towers is that the reflectors may be controlled and not the entire system. The development of power tower is less technical compared to the trough system, however, they provide the better capacity of energy storage and has higher efficiency (Jaegersberg, 2017).
This technology is composed of a linear parabolic reflector which concentrates sunlight onto receiver situated along the focal line of the reflector. The receiver is the tube-like shape that is occupied with working fluid and situated above the central point of the parabolic mirror directly. The reflectors trace the sunlight during daytime by following along the single axis. The working fluid is heated and then used as a source of heat during the system of power generation. The parabolic mirrors amplify the intensity of the sunlight 80 times (Jones, 2014). The receiver is a metal tube with a special coating prevent heat from being emitted and to maximize absorption. The space between the glass cover and metal tube is evacuated to minimize the losses of heat. The heat generated can also be stored efficiently and cheaply to generate electrical energy when there is demand (Jones, 2014).
Figure 5: Operation of parabolic concentrator (Magee, 2018)
The figure above shows the operations of the parabolic concentrator which concentrates the solar energy and then amplify the intensity of the sunlight 80 times.
The solar cooling and heating technologies gather thermal energy from the sunlight and then use this heat for the purposes of cooling and space and hot water heating for industrial, commercial, and residents applications. There are numerous types of collectors, these include concentrating, thermosiphon, integral collector storage, evacuated tube, and flat plate. A properly installed and designed system can provide 40% to 80% of the hot water needs of a building (Jäger, 2013).
In this research of the feasibility of solar supplying the electrical energy needs in Australia, the methodology involved the assessment of the current state of solar energy in Australia in terms of global ranking and also the various solar energy plants in the country. Australia possesses an installed capacity of approximately 7803MW of photovoltaic solar power as of March 2018. Numerous solar energy projects are due to start construction, have been constructed, or are under construction making the total installed capacity of all the 23 solar PV project to be 2,034MW in 2017. The renewable energy targets and feed-in tariffs that have been designed to assist commercialization of renewable energy have greatly impacted the rapid development of the solar energy in Australia (Kalogirou, 2009).
The government of Queensland introduced an energy plan that is affordable which provides interest-free loans for solar storage and solar panels with an aim of increasing the uptake of solar energy in Queensland. The cost PV has been reducing since 2013 January and currently, the cost of PV is half the cost of using the grid electrical energy in Australia. A solar feed-in tariff has been introduced for educational program and households in South Australia which involved the installation of solar photovoltaics on the roofs of major buildings in the public sector such as seven hundred public schools, Art Gallery, Museum, State Parliament and Adelaide Airport (Kennedy, 2012).
The combination of the latitude and dry climate of Australia provides the country with a high potential and benefits for the production of solar energy. Majority of continents in Australia receives extra 4KW/m2 daily of insolation during months of winter, with the northern region exceeding 6KWh/m2 (Kleissl, 2013). The figure below shows the solar potential of solar energy in Australia:
Figure 6: Potential of solar energy in Australia (Luque & Hegedus, 2018)
The figure above shows the potentials of the solar energy in the country, majority of which have not been fully explored due to the lack of substantial establishment of solar energy technologies in the states.
Australia has been criticized intentionally for the generation of low solar energy despite its overall high potential, extensive sunlight, and numerous resources. The insolation in Australia is much higher than the average values in most of the North, Russia, and Europe. The levels that are comparable with the insolation in Australia are found in desert regions on the Pacific coast of South America, the adjacent region in Mexico, southwestern United States, Southern and northern Africa (Lovegrove, 2012).
The government in Australia have introduced a mandatory target for renewable energy put in place to ensure that the renewable energy attains a share of 20% of the electrical energy supplied in the country by the year 2020. This has led to an increased generation of electrical energy from 9500GWh to 45000GWh. The Greenough River Solar Farm is one of the solar farms in Australia and is a photovoltaic power station with an installed capacity of 10MW situated in Western Australia in Walkaway. This was the first solar farm of utility-scale and was also the largest system of solar PV in Australia until 2014 when the Royalla solar farm was established in Canberra with an installed capacity of 20MW (Mackay, 2015). Some of the largest solar energy projects in Australia are discussed below:
Western Australia: This was the first major large-scale solar farm in Australia and was fully operational in 2012 October. This solar farm has a total of 150,000 solar panels with the installed capacity 10MW.
Victoria: The solar farm in this state is the Mildura Solar Concentrator Plant which has an installed capacity of 100MW and was completed in 2017. This plant was expected to be the most efficient and the biggest power station of solar photovoltaic globally. This plant was anticipated to concentrate the sunlight by times onto the solar cells for output ultrahigh power. This power station would have been generating electrical energy from the sun directly to meet the yearly requirements of more than, 40000 homes without any emission of greenhouse gases (Moss, 2014). The figure below shows the windfarms in Australia:
Figure 7: Solar Farms in Australia (Gesellschaft, 2017)
South Australia: In this region, there was the installation of the largest solar photovoltaic array positioned at the rooftop in 2017 across Barossa location at Yalumba Wine Company. The Photovoltaics involves the conversion of light into electrical energy through the use of semiconductor materials which display the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic cells normally use solar panels which are composed of numerous solar cells that produce electrical energy. When sunlight strikes the PV module, made of semiconductor materials, there will be stripping of electrons from their atomic bonds. The installation of PV may be wall mounted, rooftop mounted, or ground-mounted (Neill, 2017).
The major advantage of solar PV is that once it is installed, its operation produces no greenhouse gas emission and no pollution. The total installed capacity for this plant is 1.39MW. The other generating plants in this region include the Aurora Solar Thermal Plant, Sundrop Farms concentrated plant and Adelaide airport. The Aurora project was a contract signed to supply electrical energy to the offices of state government. The Sundrop Farms Plant was the first of its kind to be commissioned by the state and has 40MW production capacity (Neville, 2011).
Queensland: Some of the solar energy plants in this state include Hayman Solar Farm, Whitsunday Solar Farm, Hamilton Solar Farm, Lilyvale Solar Farm, and Clare solar Farm. Some of the solar energy projects that are still under construction in this state include the 180MW direct current single-axis tracking project known as the Daydream Solar Plant and the 60MW direct current single axis tracking plant known as the Hayman Solar Plant (Palmer, 2013).
Northern Territory: There are a total of 30 solar concentrator dishes at three different locations in this state, which include Lajamanu, Yuendumu, and Hermannsburg. The solar concentrating power uses lenses or mirrors to concentrate the solar thermal energy of huge regions of sunlight onto a minute region. Electrical energy is produced when the light concentrated is converted into heat which propels a heat engine coupled to a thermochemical reaction or electrical power generator. The concentrated thermal energy can be stored and then used in the production of electricity when it is necessary during the night of day (Suzuki & Nijkamp, 2017).
The overall manufacturing process of making solar PV is simple since it does not need the culmination of numerous moving or complex components. The PV system normally has a relatively longer lifespan between 10 and 30 years due to the solid nature of the solar panels. The manufacturers can improve the electrical energy output of the photovoltaics by adding extra components of PV and due to the economies of large scale for the manufacturers, the cost will be decreased while the output will be increased. Crystalline silicon photovoltaics accounts for 90% of the global production of photovoltaics in 2013 despite numerous types of PV system known to be effective (Philibert, 2011).
Numerous states in Australia have established schemes to promote the uptake of solar PV power production involving selling excess electrical energy to the energy retailers and installation of solar PV systems so as to channel the electrical energy into the electrical energy grid. The Feed-in Tariffs are paid under numerous schemes of the state to non-commercial generators of electrical energy by the solar PV plants using PV panels. These tariffs are meant to encourage and subsidize uptake of renewable sources of energy enacted by the federal mandatory renewable energy target and at the state level. This scheme has been criticized for not issuing sufficient incentives for households for the purposes of installation of solar PV systems and hence not encouraging effectively the application of solar panels (Plante, 2014).
The problem still persists as to what rate the Feed-in tariffs should be set, the factors that should be considered include the rate at which the retailer can acquire electrical energy in the wholesale market, the cost at which the retailer sells the electrical energy, market rates, and also the cost of production. The tariffs schemes effectively apply similar rates for the use of electrical energy by household producers as for the sale into the grid and the subsidy accordingly to household producers is normally less in general terms. By using the electricity by the households minimizes the quantity of electricity available to feed into the grid (Plimer, 2017).
This feasibility study only considers the photovoltaic solar system as the major supplier of electrical energy in Australia. The photovoltaic technology converts energy from the sunlight into electricity directly. Photovoltaics involves the conversion of light into electrical energy through the use of semiconductor materials which display the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic cells normally use solar panels which are composed of numerous solar cells that produce electrical energy. When sunlight strikes the PV module, made of semiconductor materials, there will be stripping of electrons from their atomic bonds. The installation of PV may be wall mounted, rooftop mounted, or ground-mounted (Rashid, 2016).
Solar cells generate direct current electrical energy from sunlight which can be used to recharge a battery or for powering any electrical equipment. The power generation using photovoltaic can be done through the use of solar panels which are composed of numerous solar cells possessing photovoltaic materials. Solar copper cables can be used in combining the modules. Solar photovoltaics is rapidly growing worldwide and the overall installed capacity is approximately 300GW by the end of the year 2018. The figure below shows the growth of photovoltaics in the whole world:
Figure 8: Exponential growth of Solar Photovoltaics (Markvart & Castaner, 2017)
From the figure above, the solar energy is expected to grow rapidly globally with an expected installed capacity being approximated at 306GW in 2018.
Just like in other states, the growth of renewable energy sources in Australia has been promoted through government energy policy effected in response to concerns regarding the economic stimulus, energy independence, and climatic change. The major policy was implemented in 2001 to promote the development of large-scale renewable energy was the mandatory target of renewable energy which was increased to 41,000Wh of generation of renewable energy from a power station in 2010. The major hydropower plant in Australia is the Snowy Mountains Scheme was established between 1949 and 1974 and is composed of 16 dams and 7 major power stations with a total generation capacity of 3,800MW (Richards, 2009).
Between 2017 and 2018, hydropower denotes 43% of the total generated renewable energy in the country and between 2014 and 2015, this percentage dropped to 39% of the total renewable energy generated. The table below shows the top 10 photovoltaics installed as well as the total solar power capacity in the year 2018:
Table 1: Global ranking of the Solar PV energy generation in Australia (Patel, 2018)
From the table above, Australia is ranked 8th globally in the generation of solar energy with an annual installed capacity of 0.9GW and 9th positions globally in terms of cumulative installed capacity of 5.1GW.
In Australia, the accumulative 15 wind energy projects have the generation capacity of 2,112MW which are either to be constructed, are operational or are under construction as of 2017 July. The total installed capacity was 1880MW as of 2017 October which included projects under construction. The wind energy production in South Australia is growing very fast since the region is suitable for wind farms. Therefore, a lot of wind energy is being produced in South Australia compared to any other territory or state. The wind energy generated in South Australia increased to 26% of the total generated electrical energy by the end of 2011 (Sayigh, 2009).
There are numerous requirements for the solar energy plant location, the major requirement is the solar radiation. The combination of the latitude and dry climate of Australia provides the country with a high potential and benefits for the production of solar energy. Majority of continents in Australia receives extra 4KW/m2 daily of insolation during months of winter, with the northern region exceeding 6KWh/m2. Australia has been criticized intentionally for the generation of low solar energy despite its overall high potential, extensive sunlight, and numerous resources. The insolation in Australia is much higher than the average values in most of the North, Russia, and Europe. The levels that are comparable with the insolation in Australia are found in desert regions on the Pacific coast of South America, an adjacent region in Mexico, southwestern United States, Southern and northern Africa (Seligman, 2010).
The locations which have a high share of gasses in form of smog and particles and also the high formation of clouds should not be selected for the installation of the solar PV panels. The regions should have enough space which should be as flat as possible. The ratio of performance to the area is not a criterion for basing the decision on the location of the solar PV system especially for the arid region since these areas cannot be used for this purpose. There is also need of the location having a suitable soil for the construction of structures and projects far from being wooded and arable. The location should also have an appropriate infrastructure such as transmission lines, water supply, and traffic routes (Senate, 2009).
The combination of the latitude and dry climate of Australia provides the country with a high potential and benefits for the production of solar energy. Majority of continents in Australia receives extra 4KW/m2 daily of insolation during months of winter, with the northern region exceeding 6KWh/m2. This shows that Australia has a high potential to use solar energy as a source of electrical energy economically. Numerous research shows that the locations with the best climatic conditions for the installation of solar energy technologies are the desert regions with a temperature between 40oC of northern latitude and 40oC of southern latitude. This includes also the desert regions in Australia (Siegenthaler, 2016).
The Mediterranean region is situated around Perth in Western Australia, and also in Victoria and South Australia between Melbourne and Adelaide, while the region of the tropics is the northern coastal region. This feasibility study evaluates the required factors in order to find an appropriate location for setting up the solar energy in Australia. These factors include exclusion of wooded regions and considerations of region size, proximity to inhabited areas as a result of electricity consumers, water supply, and traffic routes, proximity to existed transmission lines, and also direct normal solar irradiance of Australia (Sørensen, 2010). The figure below shows the direct normal irradiance of Australia:
Figure 9: Annual average direct normal irradiance of Australia (Yan, 2018)
From the figure above, the spatial distribution is broad and visible regions with high direct normal irradiance can be identified. These include the central regions of Queensland regions, South Australia, Northern Territory, and west coast of Western Australia. The regions which are less appropriate include the east and south coast hence New South Wales and Victoria have only less potential. Another factor to be considered is the proximity to inhabited regions such that the traffic routes and supply of water exist and enough electrical energy for consumers are present (Troy, 2014). Therefore, this feasibility study closely looks at the population density shown in figure 10 in the proximity of supplier areas which are indicated as a probable location with direct normal irradiance or solar radiation an access to electrical energy grid (Twidell, 2015). The figure below shows the population density of the country as of 2013 June:
Figure 10: The population density of Australia (Prinsloo & Dobson, 2017)
The last factor is the selection of sufficient regions without woodland. A huge scale solar power plant requires approximately 2Ha per megawatts of electrical energy. It is necessary to determine the capacity of the Solar PV plant so as to be able to evaluate if the region under consideration has sufficiency area as shown in table 2 below. This feasibility study considers the energy demand in the region in Australia (Wang, 2018). The table below shows the energy consumption and the population of the regions under consideration:
Table 2: Energy consumption and a population of regions under consideration (Bonnie & Danel, 2017)
This feasibility study plans to construct a huge scale solar PV plants which will be supplying the electrical energy needs for Australia. Therefore, a capacity of 50MW for every region under consideration is fixed hence the area required is 100Ha with enough woodless area (Wright, 2010).
Under the cost estimation, some of the factors that should be considered when conducting the feasibility study of solar energy supplying the electrical energy in Australia include the investment cost and electrical production cost (Xiao, 2017).
The investment cost of solar PV plants can be categorized construction cost, cost of the solar storage system, cost of collectors, and cost of site improvements. The cost of solar PV storage includes the cost of the solar battery which will be used in the storage of excess electrical energy produced by the solar PV plants as shown in table 3 below (Zheng, 2017). The table below shows the specific investment cost of solar PV plants together with the storage cost:
Table 3: Specific of investment of Solar PV plant compared with that of the Gas (Suzuki & Nijkamp, 2017)
The cost of storage of solar energy has the highest value of 2740A$/kWh, this is as a result of the increase in demand for the solar PV plants and also a low number of manufacturers. It is expected that the number of constructors and manufactures of the solar PV plants will increase in the near future. In this feasibility study, the solar PV plant should have a capacity of 50MW and a storage of 12hours (Kalogirou, 2009).
To estimate the cost of production of electrical energy of the future solar PV plants in Australia, there is need of comparing the current cost of electrical production for the utility-scale, commercial, and residential solar PV systems for eight different countries namely US, UK, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, and Australia as shown in table 4 below (Enteria, 2018). The table below shows the solar PV electrical energy production cost:
Table 4: The solar PV electrical energy production cost (Borenstein, 2018)
From the table above, the values of the electrical production cost of solar PV for residential buildings and commercial buildings in Australia is cheaper compared to the majority of those states. However, the electrical production cost of solar PV for the utility-scale is relatively higher in Australia. This means that the cost of electricity production in Australia for both residential and commercial structures are expected to be lower in the future compared to the cost of electrical energy production in other states with an exception of Chine whose cost if slightly lower. However, the cost of electrical energy production of solar PV for the utility-scale in Australia is expected to be higher in the future according to the current value of electricity production cost compared with the other states whose values are slightly lower (Neville, 2011).
A detailed strategic plan is a very significant for Australia to attain the objective if producing one-third of the energy demand by solar PV plants. There have been numerous steps that have been implemented so as to minimize the emission of carbon dioxide in the country, for example, there was the development of the carbon price and carbon tax so as to make it easy for companies to reduce their carbon emission. The major policy was implemented in 2001 to promote the development of large-scale renewable energy was the mandatory target of renewable energy which was increased to 41,000Wh of generation of renewable energy from power station in 2010 (Patel, 2018).
The government of Queensland introduced an energy plan that is affordable which provides interest-free loans for solar storage and solar panels with an aim of increasing the uptake of solar energy in Queensland. The cost PV has been reducing since 2013 January and currently, the cost of PV is half the cost of using the grid electrical energy in Australia. A solar feed-in tariff has been introduced for educational program and households in South Australia which involved the installation of solar photovoltaics on the roofs of major buildings in the public sector such as seven hundred public schools, Art Gallery, Museum, State Parliament and Adelaide Airport (Philibert, 2011).
There is also the need for the Australia energy sector to implement the emerging technologies in the solar PV plants. Some of these technologies include the floatovoltaics and concentrator photovoltaics. Floatovoltaics are some of the emerging technologies in the solar PV system and they work by floating on the surface of tailing ponds, quarry lakes, water reservoirs, and irrigation canals. This technology has been implemented in numerous countries such as the US, UK, Korea, Japan, India, and France. These technologies show a higher solar energy conversion efficiency, save drinking water that could have been lost through evaporation, and minimize the need of valuable land area since the photovoltaics are kept at a cooler temperature compared to the instance when they are placed on land (Hossain & Mahmud, 2017).
Another technology that can also be implemented in the Australian energy sector is the concentrator photovoltaics system which uses the sunlight concentrated on the surface of photovoltaics for the purpose of the generation of electrical energy. The concentrating photovoltaics are different from the conventional photovoltaic system since it uses curved mirrors and lenses to focus sunlight onto multi-junction, highly efficient and small solar cells. Solar concentrators of different types can be used, and they are generally installed on a solar tracker so as to maintain the focal point upon the solar cell as the sun moves across the atmosphere. The concentrated photovoltaics systems are significant since they improve the efficiency of the solar PV systems (Boxwell, 2010).
Due to the increasing cost of fossil fuels and global warming, renewable sources of energy have become a significant direction for numerous countries including Australia. There have been numerous steps that have been implemented so as to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide in the country, for example, there was the formation of the carbon price and carbon tax so as to make it easy for companies to minimize their carbon emission. There is presently a crisis in the supply of reliable and sufficient electrical energy in Australia as well as other countries (Behrens, 2017). Sufficient electrical energy can be generated to satisfy the increasing demand for electrical energy by focusing on the environmentally friendly renewable energy sources. The energy crisis can be solved by changing to the solar energy source as a main energy source as an alternative source of energy (Diesendorf, 2013).
Another benefit of solar energy is that when used in supplying the electrical energy needs for Australia is that the solar PV systems help in harnessing the solar energy by capturing the energy from the sun and then convert it into electrical energy which can be used in homes to power electrical appliances. An inverter is used for the purposes of converting AV electricity which can be used in homes. To use this renewable energy on a large scale, there is a need for economic energy storage. Finding a way to store the excess electrical energy for use later can help in capitalizing on the worth of solar investment. Battery storage systems are the best way of consuming the valuable solar energy that has been produced by the panels (Gesellschaft, 2017).
The solar power is also completely carbon-neutral since it is one of the cleanest energy sources and is an extremely effective way of generating a more sustainable country. The even relatively minute solar system can potentially reduce the emission by three or two tins yearly. Another benefit of solar energy to the people of Australia is that this source of energy is abundant and freely provided by nature. The insolation in Australia is much higher than the average values in most of the North, Russia, and Europe. The levels that are comparable with the insolation in Australia are found in desert regions on the Pacific coast of South America, an adjacent region in Mexico, southwestern United States, Southern and northern Africa. This abundance of solar radiation available in Australia makes it not only an amazingly sustainable means of producing an eco-friendly country but also makes it an effective way of increasing the energy prices in the country (Dovers, 2009).
The solar energy sources are also dependable electrical energy sources compared to the fossil fuel whose usage has sharply improved as a result of over-reliance on these energy sources to spike in prices of energy, adverse effects of the energy policies of the state, trade dispute, and political instabilities. The solar energy sources are distributed essentially over various geographical localities in Australia where that are low disruptions during the production of electrical energy. The solar energy installation have also led to the job creation in the global economy compared to the energy sources like fossil fuels which are usually mechanized and capital intensive hence requiring only minute number of personnel for maintenance (Heinberg, 2016).
Normally the cost of construction and installation of solar PV systems normally depend on the ability and willingness to purchase them, however, these costs have significantly reduced of the past years, hence enabling photovoltaic systems to be a dominant feature of modern design premises. The prices of electrical energy in Australia are increasing rapidly as a result of numerous economic factors such as the rise of domestic solar energy. The major barrier of using solar energy in supplying the electrical energy needs for Australia is that the sun is not only present for a half a day, but also the sunlight hours fluctuates yearly. The cost of investing in the solar PV in Australia is still the major disadvantage especially with utility-scale generation despite the cost being lower for domestic and commercial consumption (Chwieduk, 2014).
The technologies and facilities used during the construction of the solar energy plant require fossil fuels and also the technologies used in transportation and distribution networks. This shows that the solar energy depends on the non-renewable sources of energy such as fossil fuels, whereas the fossil fuels do not depend on the solar energy plant. The setting up of a solar plant to generate megawatts of electrical energy require a huge space of land compared with another power plants such as nuclear which only require a small space to setup and generate substantial quantity of electrical energy. The solar energy also requires storage facilities because it is only available for 12 hours of daylight (Luque & Hegedus, 2018).
When using the solar energy source, backup resources and storage facilities in homes or businesses must be implemented into the power generation system so as to store the excess energy and then supply the energy when the solar PV are no longer receiving sunlight. The solar energy may also become ineffective during the night and snow seasons when there is no supply of sunlight or heat to be used by the solar PV to produce electrical energy. The primary challenge in the incorporation of storage or backup systems is that there will be increased installation cost which may be unaffordable to numerous individuals (Mackay, 2015).
This section reviews the different strategies that can be adopted in the solar energy sector so as to improve the supply of electrical energy needs for Australia. These strategies seek to improve the generation of solar energy in the country by majorly considering higher energy conversion efficiency, less material consumption, application of locally and new available materials, innovation in low cost of manufacturing process, mass production of panels, and indigenous solar PV manufacturing. There have been numerous proposals by researchers on numerous ways in which efficient and cost-effectiveness of solar PV can be improved. The current solar PV arrays used in the solar energy farms in Australia are ordinary solar panels with an average efficiency of 15% which means that the extra 85% of solar energy that reaches the solar PV are not converted electrical energy (Foster, 2009).
The proposed solar energy technologies that can be implemented in the solar energy sector is the light-sensitive nanoparticles like layering gallium arsenide phosphide technology. This technology is viewed as a tradeoff between efficiency and cost of solar PV and the solar energy sector in Australia should consider implementing this technology. This technology has the ability of achieving 40% theoretical efficiency of energy conversion and 35% of practical efficiency. Suppliers and manufacturers of the solar PV systems identified the two major barriers to their greater use as their cost compared to the traditional system and the absence of incentives to use solar systems (Troy, 2014).
Some of the technical barriers affecting the supply of solar PV system include the government policies that discriminates one technology from another, distortion in the market prices of technologies resulting from market failure through an inability to implement external costs and the provision of subsidies, and the attitudes resulting from the technical experience and information with the technology (Yan, 2018).
The rate of development in energy generation and consumption has gradually reduced in the past decade. This decline is the quantity of electrical energy can be explained by the energy prices and economic crises which have been experiences in the country in the past few years. The energy demand is anticipated to continue growing and the forthcoming distribution of solar energy sources will be determined by the factors such as government policies and energy prices. The growth of solar energy source is increasing rapidly in many geographical positions within the state. The state governments of different states in Australia should set a diverse target for the production of electrical energy from the solar energy source to ensure that the energy generated is sufficient to satisfy the demand. The expected target for electrical energy production for New South Wales has been set to be 20% and that of Victoria has been set to be 25% of the total generated energy by 2020 (Jones, 2014).
Conclusion
In order to produce sufficient electrical energy to satisfy the demand of energy within the country by the solar PV within the country, there is need of increasing the production of the electrical energy by majorly focusing of ways of improving the electricity generation such as improved technologies. There have been many steps that have been put in place to minimize the carbon dioxide emission in the country, these strategies include the formation of the carbon price and carbon tax so as to make it more practical for the development of solar energy sector. The most beneficial and effective solution to solve the current energy crisis and reduce the carbon emission is to move towards the sources of renewable energy by changing to solar energy as the major energy source and the wind energy as an alternative source of energy.
Australia has taken significant steps towards the development of the renewable energy as well as the solar energy sector. This research paper reviews the key barriers, effectiveness, and measures that can be implemented to ensure improved electrical energy from the solar energy. Solar energy is generated when the energy from the sunrays is focused to the PV cells. These cells then convert the sunlight into electricity by the application of photovoltaic effect. Currently, there is low electrical energy generation from the solar energy sources in Australia because of the high cost of per kW compared to the energy sources. Some of the improved innovations that are currently being considered so as to improve the efficiency of the solar energy and the energy generated include the application of the building integrated PV where the PV cells function as architectural and structural functions and implementation of solar concentrates system which concentrates the solar energy to a smaller segment of cells with high efficiency.
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