My cursory Google says that it’s not impossible. So why?
EDIT: Answer seems to be that (politics aside) practically it’s cost prohibitive and the tech can’t transfer the energy over the distance required.
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And send all of that energy where? Electricity can only travel a certain distance and all of those underwater cables get expensive. Same thing with making the Sahara into a solar farm.
Here’s answers that are not just specific to Australia, but in general, it’s because there’s not enough **perceived need** for it yet (and note how important ‘perception’ is).
1. Expense versus benefit. Giant solar farms are coming WAY down in price compared to decades ago… but they are still VERY expensive to set up and attach to the local power grid. So some business or government has to want to absorb the risk, front the money or get the necessary financing, secure all the resources required to do all the work, and make a profit. That’s absolutely not easy for megaprojects. And unless people are clamoring for that power NOW NOW NOW, there’s not a political appetite to spend there.
2. Political/industrial resistance. At least in my own country, there is a powerful “carbon energy lobby” that pushes back against solar. They work hard to pressure politicians to spend money on other things than solar.
3. NIMBY. Stands for “Not In My Back Yard”. You want to build your plant close to cities because it’s more economical and you have a nearby supply of workers… but a lot of suburbs don’t want such infrastructure near them, and it’s got to avoid “at-risk” environmental areas. So there’s pushback even if it creates jobs. It’s an obstacle that most large-footprint projects need to overcome.
4. Short-term thinking. Far too many voters still haven’t accepted the massive impact of climate change and need for everyone to move to green energy. So there’s no incredibly motivating drivers to elect politicians that will push such a carbon-reducing project yet.
5. Future uncertainty. Solar technology is advancing so fast that it’s difficult to know WHEN to invest. “If we build it five years from now, solar will be cheaper. If we wait ten years, even cheaper. And in twenty years… who knows, maybe we’ll have nuclear fusion! Maybe there will be super-less-expensive rooftop systems! Let’s wait and see!”
If I recall correctly there are solar farms and there are plans to build many many more in the north.
It takes time to build these things and solar used to be awful at producing energy.
They plan to be a big exporter of hydrogen, so I think a lot of the solar will go towards that
EDIT: if anyone happens to have western Australia’s map of the planned solar farms, I’d love to track it down.
Australia has a lot of coal and fairly easily accessible and transportable. So that has been the traditional source of energy. Still, the latest statistics are that Australia generates 30% of their electricity from renewable sources.
The problem, particularly for solar, is distribution and storage. This is still rather expensive making it somewhat uncompetitive especially if coal is widely available nearby.
Still there is interest:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link)
Somewhat more interesting is why Australia shuns nuclear power especially since Australia has a fair amount of uranium locally.
I’d guess (likely inaccurately or too simplistically) that the vested interests in Australian coal are not making it easy politically. The mining industry is a major part of Australia’s economy – it is the largest sector of its GDP.
The other thing to note is that Australia is HUGE and sparsely populated. The optimal areas for solar and wind generation might not be very close to where the demand is.
Aside from reasons like lobbying, “the cost isn’t warranted” etc., there are actual objective reasons why you solar farms haven’t been built in really sunny but desolated places yet.
One is that the places are desolate. You still have to build those massive solar farms. For that you need the people and materials to build them. It would take months to years, which means you’d need to build out infrastructure to house people in places that are… Desolate. Nobody lives there for a reason. While less so than Sahara, this would be a problem even in Australia. That’s significantly more cost to the project.
Another is an offshoot of the first. While solar panels don’t have lubricants or moving parts, they still need maintenance. And they do have limited service lives. And you’d be putting them in the middle of nowhere (see above), in an environment that is dry and dusty, so they’d actually need MORE maintenance than normal. Otherwise you’d quickly start losing power. And even if you install some dust prevention systems, THOSE will then need power and maintenance, and increase the cost of the panels.
So yeah, it’s not impossible, just a logistical headache that nobody wants to take responsibility for atm.
There was a giant solar farm in the sahara that was a bust not because it didn’t work but because photovoltaics got so cheap. It’s cheaper to put solar panels on rooftops and fields close to where you need the electricity than to build in middle of nowhere then also build the infrastructure to move the electricity where you need it. (This is true even for cloudy areas like north europe.)
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edit to add Youtube link to cool video
> Answer seems to be that (politics aside) practically it’s cost prohibitive and the tech can’t transfer the energy over the distance required.
Don’t underestimate the influence of the fossil fuel lobby. They have spent vast amounts of money over the years promoting the idea that other energy sources are unworkable. Much of this goes on beneath the surface – they don’t run ads saying “Solar is bad, sponsored by Shell” – instead they schmooze politicians and journalists, set up fake environmentalist groups to muddy the waters, and even work to infiltrate existing environmentalist groups. In recent years they have also run lots of ads claiming that they are already switching to other energy sources – for a while, BP even called itself “Beyond Petroleum”.
The biggest technical problem with solar is that its output doesn’t correspond closely to demand. It peaks in the middle of the day and drops to zero when it goes dark, but in most places, demand peaks in the evening, when the lights are on and people are cooking, watching TV, etc. Its output is also greatly reduced on cloudy days. This means you need either (a) a lot of storage or (b) other energy sources that can complement it. Since energy storage is difficult at large scales, and most of those other energy sources can happily run throughout the day too, this reduces the attractiveness of solar. Not that it’s bad or useless – it just has some significant drawbacks, like all energy sources.
> cursive
You mean cursory. Cursive means joined-up handwriting.
There are heaps of solar farms in Australia, usually as part of, or replacing regular farms. We’re just in a transition period, and theres no current need for a massive one in the desert for example. The growth is massive though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Australia
You can export energy long distances, but like others have said, it needs to be stored somehow, into hydrogen, batteries, etc to do so. Wires will lose too much along the way.
Long term strategy in Aus is actually to produce hydrogen using solar, then ship hydrogen to Japan who doesn’t have room to produce it. Japan then use hydrogen instead of all the coal Aus sends currently. One of the reasons Toyota is so keen on hydrogen.
There are huge solar plants in the UAE and lots coming through in KSA is completely do-able. I know nothing about Australia really but the answer to this stuff is usually political will and money
Solar PV generated approximately 10 percent of Australia’s electricity in 2020-21, and is the fastest growing generation type in Australia.
More than 30 percent of Australian households now have rooftop solar PV, with a combined capacity exceeding 11 GW.
Large scale solar farms are also on the rise in Australia, with almost 7 GW of generation connected to Australia’s electricity grid.
There are a few large scale solar farms planed in Australia including the world’s largest to be completed in 2027.
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