The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has approved $65 million in funding to Vast Solar to construct VS1, a first-of-a-kind 30MW/288MWh concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Port Augusta, South Australia.

ARENA’s funding for VS1 is conditional upon the project reaching a financial close, which is targeted to occur in late 2023. VS1 is expected to take two years to build with commercial operations commencing late 2025.

The $203 million project seeks to demonstrate the technical and operational performance of Vast Solar’s modular CSP technology at utility scale to unlock further investment in future projects and provide another pathway for Australian industry to decarbonise.

The project will aim to demonstrate how CSP can provide a reliable and scalable dispatchable renewable energy solution in the Australian market.

CSP uses mirrors to concentrate and capture heat from the sun in solar receivers, with high-temperature heat transferred via sodium and stored in molten salt. The stored heat can then be used to heat water to create steam to power a turbine and produce electricity, or the heat can also be used directly to decarbonise some industrial processes.

One of the benefits of CSP is that the captured heat can be stored cost-effectively for long periods with little loss of energy. This means that CSP can be used to generate electricity or provide heat on demand, including overnight.

ARENA has supported the Vast Solar technology since 2012, including providing $9.9 million in funding towards the 1.1MW CSP Pilot Plant in Jemalong, New South Wales.

ARENA chief executive Darren Miller says the expansion of Vast Solar’s technology into a commercial-scale project shows that CSP technology could play an important role in generating and storing renewable energy at scale.

“With the increasing need for dispatchable renewable generation and longer duration energy storage, CSP has potential to assist Australia’s energy transition alongside pumped hydro and large-scale batteries,” he says.

“Vast Solar’s global recognition as a leader in CSP technology innovation, combined with its significant technical and commercial expertise, means that it is well placed to deliver Australia’s first large-scale CSP plant which should deliver power at a cost competitive with other forms of renewable generation.”