{"id":516709,"date":"2010-03-16T05:25:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T09:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ecoseed.org\/en\/general-green-news\/renewable-energy\/solar-energy\/concentrating-solar-power\/6610-Spanish-group-eyes-$-1-billion-solar-thermal-project-in-Australia"},"modified":"2010-03-16T05:25:44","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T09:25:44","slug":"spanish-group-eyes-1-billion-solar-thermal-project-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/516709","title":{"rendered":"Spanish group eyes $ 1 billion solar thermal project in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/span>Subsidiary of Spanish industrial group proposes 1 billion Australian dollar solar power project<\/span><\/p>\n


\nBy Honey Garcia<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Solar thermal applications generate electricity by using energy to boil water whose steam drives a turbine.
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A subsidiary of a leading Spanish industrial group is proposing an ambitious solar power project worth 1 billion Australian dollars ($916 million) that will emerge as one of the largest of its kind in the world. <\/p>\n

Cobra Energy, a subsidiary of the Spanish ACS Group, will reportedly build a 250-megawatt solar energy<\/a> plant, possibly in three sites. One of the three sites will be located near Mildura in Victoria while two sites are being planned in Queensland. <\/p>\n

Though the proposed power plant will only have a sixth of the power a standard coal plant produces, it will be one of the biggest solar thermal plants in the world when it opens.<\/p>\n

The company has reportedly<\/a> initiated talks with the local governments of Victoria and Queensland to finalize the location based on suitability, program requirements and support from the relevant state government. <\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the numbers we have proposed so far have worried the state people we have spoken to so far,\u201d said Alan Atchison, Cobra Energy\u2019s Australian chief. <\/p>\n

Cobra Energy also plans to enlist the help of local construction company John Holland for the project. <\/p>\n

Other Spanish giants such as Abengoa Solar and Acciona, as well as United States-based BrightSource Energy, might also get involved in the project. <\/p>\n

Solar flagship<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cobra Energy has not detailed how the project would be financed, but it was reported that it would seek the help of the Australian government\u2019s solar flagship program<\/a>, a 1.5 billion Australian dollar effort for solar thermal<\/a> and photovoltaic<\/a> technologies. <\/p>\n

The solar flagship program is part of the Australian government\u2019s Clean Energy Initiative which aims to boost the country\u2019s clean energy sources with the help of 4.5 billion Australian dollars to build about 1,000 MW of solar power generation capacity. The government included this program in its national budget announced in May 2009.<\/p>\n

Cobra Energy (Pink Sheets:CBNG) said it will bring to Australia its own base load power generation technology that has been used in projects in Andalucia and Extremadura in Spain. <\/p>\n

Base load power generation enables solar power plants to continue generating electricity seven and a half hours after the sun has set. This is possible by using excess energy stored in molten salts during the day. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to have real progress in reducing emissions in Australia and a reliable energy system, it\u2019s based on base load capacity. For our solar flagships we\u2019re actually going to test whether we can prove up base load reliable solar energy in Australia under the government program,\u201d said Martin Ferguson, Australia\u2019s minister of federal energy and resources, as quoted in the Australian. <\/p>\n

Australia wants to derive 20 percent of its energy from renewable energy<\/a> sources by 2020. <\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s solar flagship program aims to develop a combined 400 MW of power, half of which will come from solar thermal and half from photovoltaic energy sources. Solar thermal applications generate electricity by using energy to boil water whose steam drives a turbine. <\/p>\n

The program aims to subsidize the costs of building large-scale solar plants and promote the use of energy generated from solar power plants in the country, which is currently led by the wind power industry. <\/p>\n

Solar power generation is more expensive than wind power generation but many see great promise in Australia\u2019s solar capacity because of the country\u2019s abundant sunshine.\n<\/p>\n


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Subsidiary of Spanish industrial group proposes 1 billion Australian dollar solar power project By Honey Garcia Solar thermal applications generate electricity by using energy to boil water whose steam drives a turbine. A subsidiary of a leading Spanish industrial group is proposing an ambitious solar power project worth 1 billion Australian dollars ($916 million) that will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5771,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}