THE campaign team behind an innovative renewable energy proposal at Port Augusta says the state government will need to act quickly to give the project the best chance of success.
Repower Port Augusta has been pressuring both sides of politics on their vision for a solar thermal plant to replace the city's two ageing coal power plants.
The Playford B and Northern power stations are coming to the end of their life cycle and look set to be replaced by either Repower's proposal or a combined-cycle gas plant.
Alinta Energy, owner of the plants, is undertaking a two-year, $2.3-million feasibility study into the proposal, backed by the state government's Enterprise Zone Fund and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Beyond Zero Emissions released a report in 2012 that claimed 1500 construction jobs and 360 ongoing jobs would be created by the solar thermal option.
Repower Port Augusta chairperson Lisa Lumsden wants the state government to take further action by securing funding for the project from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
She says this must happen quickly because the two federal agencies are in danger of being scrapped once the new federal Senate is sworn in on July 1.
The corporation offers low-interest loans to renewable energy projects while the agency provides finance to applicable projects.
"We want to make sure Alinta or any other proponent has funding available to assist the first build - the first time you build new technology in a country, it is going to be more expensive than if it is off the rack," Ms Lumsden said.
To make the project more likely to be approved for a loan, Ms Lumsden is pushing for the state government to commit to either directly buying power from the plant, or to paying the difference between standard electricity prices and the cost of power generated by the solar thermal facility.
Repower has estimated a power purchase agreement of $10m a year from the state government would be enough to get it off the ground.
"By paying the difference it might get to a point where the state government could make rather than pay money once fossil fuels get more expensive than solar thermal," she said.
Ms Lumsden said SA was yet to use any of the ARENA funding available to the state.
Repower has proposed to replace the coal plants with six solar thermal plants and 95 wind turbines. It says this will create 1800 jobs and save 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Solar thermal uses the energy of the sun to boil water to power the turbines which generate the electricity.
At night, Repower proposes using molten salt - which can store heat for 18 hours - to continue generating steam.
Alinta Energy is also considering a hybrid option which would use coal at night instead.
Repower's resolve has been bolstered by a neighbouring solar thermal project in the Port Augusta region, the Sun Drop farms initative.
The project is an innovative greenhouse development that grows crops using desalinated water, all powered by solar thermal.
CEFC has already loaned money to the development which is much more advanced than Repower's plan.
* Full report in Stock Journal, March 27, 2014 issue.
