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.
In: 609
It’s happening on a scale that you may not have imagined…
https://www.businessnewsaustralia.com/articles/twiggy-forrest-backed-intercontinental-solar-power-project-deemed–investment-ready-.html
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/twiggy-s-fortescue-plans-10-billion-pilbara-wind-and-solar-farm-20220209-p59v1l.html
There are few mine sites now with very large farms, the one I’ve seen in person hopes to run the whole operation but knowing how much power the crusher takes I’m not sure they’ll be able to do that without the gas turbines… outside of that though it looks achievable for that particular site, it isn’t a massive operation
My answer is: there are. Where they are practical.
I’ve worked on the applications for a couple of solar farms just in the past few months. Generally they’re located on existing farms, and relatively close to rural centres. Often they’ll have wind turbines and the like on the same site. They have also been built along with Hydrogen Plants and Battery Energy Storage Systems. We’ve even had a few alongside new minesites.
They might not be happening as much as you’d like, or not being advertised, but they are certainly happening.
Australia has a high level of solar irradiance, which means it receives a lot of sunlight, making it well-suited for solar energy. As a result, solar energy has been increasingly utilized in the country in recent years.
There are several large solar farms in Australia, including the Moree Solar Farm, which has a capacity of 240 MW and is located in New South Wales. The Royalla Solar Farm is a 20 MW solar farm located in the Australian Capital Territory, and the Solar Choice Bulli Creek Solar Farm is a 10 MW solar farm located in Queensland.
In addition to these large solar farms, there are also many smaller-scale solar projects in Australia, including rooftop solar panels on homes and businesses. As of 2021, around 15% of Australia’s electricity was generated from solar power.
Despite the growth in solar energy, Australia still relies on a mix of energy sources, including coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric power. The country has abundant reserves of coal and natural gas, and these sources have traditionally been used to generate electricity.
Hydroelectric power is also an important source of electricity in Australia, particularly in the eastern states.
The development of large-scale renewable energy projects, such as giant solar farms, can be challenging due to a variety of factors, including financing, regulatory issues, and environmental impacts. For example, large solar farms can take up a lot of land and may require the construction of new transmission infrastructure. Additionally, there can be issues with obtaining necessary permits and approvals, and there may be concerns about the environmental impacts of the project. These challenges can make it difficult to develop giant solar farms in Australia.
From ChatGPT
We could build them, affordably. Solar thermal with molten salt would probably be the most useful for of peak evening power, if we are talking large scale. This solves the ‘sun doesn’t shine at night’ issue, which will actually become an issue due to more widespread small solar roof paneling, (this means we have enough energy in a mid summer evening but then not enough when the sun goes down).
We haven’t because governments have made it clear that this is not welcome, and they love the coal industry, for reasons not at all connected with big donations.
We may possibly see them being built now, BUT this takes time. Plans and lobbying are currently underway, and until the new government decides which rich mates get what in the way of handouts, it will remain unclear.
There are projects in the works (sun cable is a notable one) to take solar energy generated in central Australia and supply Singapore with it.
We have them ! They made one up in newman (wa) and it produced so much power it tripped the grid. So instead of upgrading our grids they just turned the solar off. Aus is stupid as
1. Many medium is better than singular large due to localised weather, power distribution concentration vs distributed consumption etc
2. The cost to hook into the grid is material. You want to locate your farm close to or on the grid. Fun fact: USA companies buy decommissioned coal power stations to run wind and solar to save on the electric infrastructure costs. In Australia our population is concentrated around our grid and farmland, making land purchase expensive. Thus, cheap land in our arid centre is no where near high capacity grid.
3. What is big? I know of several farms of over 1/2 a million panels. Non-trivial cost to set up.
4. Already in Oz we may be approaching peak solar for current storage tech. Power price going negative at lunch, but four figures when sun sets. Getting harder to fund big farms.
As an electrician who has been building solar farms for the past 3 years we have a lot of very large solar farms already. We have multiple farms that can power over 100,000 homes every year with ease. The biggest problem we have at the moment is the electrical grid needs to be upgraded.
But if you mean a truely big solar farm, then we are planing on building one hopefully next year in NT. It will be 10 Giga Watts (biggest in Australia that is running is 330 mega watts) which is absolutely huge but it’s to power Singapore not Australia. Problem with Australia is we have no incentive to build them so only private companies do it
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