CSP World

Repower Port Augusta, a not for profit grassroots movement aiming to replace two of Australia's oldest coal plant, located on Adelaide, with solar and wind don't give up its fight.

The group counts with strong support from the community, despite the recent changes in the Australian political landscape. Nine interested parties from Adelaide and around the state visited Port Augusta for a planning day on Saturday to discuss the future of Repower Port Augusta and its intended fight towards a solar future for the city.

The new Coalition-led government has publicly expressed its intention to reduce support to renewable energy projects while Alinta, the owner of the coal-fired plants announced last July it was dropping a plan to conduct a feasibility study to build a conentrated solar thermal plant after the Australian Renewable Energy Agency rejected to fund the project.

Repower Port Augusta Lisa Lumsden said the nine people who had attended the planning day had displayed a passionate interest in a solar future for the state. "We're pretty lucky that there's a whole team of people from around South Australia who are equally as driven to bring solar thermal to Port Augusta," she said.

Lumsden said Repower Port Augusta strategy to encourage members of state government to get on board will continue. "Our aim is to get a by-partisan commitment from parties in the lead up to the state election and get them to recognise this is above politics; it's the future of South Australia and it's not just about Port Augusta, it's about the state, manufacturing, jobs, construction, things that are much bigger than just Port Augusta," she said.

The Organization hopes the state government to consider making a commitment to signing a power purchase agreement, which would pave the way to Alinta to move forward for a CSP plant develpoment.

"[The agreement] will make this financially more possible to happen and it won't cost the state government enormous amounts of money, but will make it happen," she said.

Lumsden is proposing the State to sign a contract for difference to give a premium for concentrated solar thermal generation based on market price. A 15 to 25 years contract could lead to reduce the risk for the company and help bankability for such a project.

Repower Port Augusta deserves great credit for its work to promote the CSP technology in Australia. The Group has carried out a large number of actions to gather support for their cause, including the Walk for Solar inititative, a voting campaign and the commitment of a local MP to ntroduce a motion in parliament "to establish a House of Assembly Select Committee to investigate the merits of the proposal that solar thermal power plants could replace existing coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta when coal from Leigh Creek is no longer available".

It's worth notting that no other similar grassroots movement has been seen in any country. In fact not even many of the companies involved in the CSP sector have made such a public campaign to support the concentrated solar power technology. Perhaps these companies could gain knowledge from this movement.