Surely anybody can "get it" that with all the wind turbines in creation there will still be "wind droughts" when negligible power can be produced and an alternative despatchable source of electricity must be present unless Australia votes to return to the old days of common blackouts. Candles, gas lamps around the house ready etc. I know of no other feasible alt source but fossil fuels.
With respect to solar - PV can not feed all the morning and evening rushes so we need a source for the peaks outside solar PV times.
With respect to solar thermal - I have not seen feasibility studies that would let an engineer assess capital cost and model output into our typical diurnal demand curve.
I know there have been solar thermal pilot plants run -
Cooma and Lake Cargelligo generated steam in graphite blocks on towers.
More recently there is a liquid sodium plant near Forbes also in NSW.
GoogleEarth scenes as late as 2015 show the Cooma site looks non functional.
Lake Cargelligo looks in good order from the air and it is claimed to have run for 25,000 hours but is not producing to AEMO - http://www.graphiteenergy.com/technology-demonstration.php
Using Google to search I can find no technical report of estimated cost to construct a scaled up version and the output that could be expected - despite considerable Australian Govt grants being spent on its construction. If readers can point me to a technical report re Lake Cargelligo - please be my guest.
Vast the owners at Forbes say little useful yet.
So until more info comes public - solar thermal is still unproven in terms of cost and output. I think I can get-it raiderup if it is there to be got.
