RIP Wizard Power
Posted by Big Gav in csp, solar power, solar thermal power, wizard power
While I'm folding funeral services for projects I've covered in the past, Tristan Edis at the Climate Spectator has a series of articles (one, two and three) covering the demise of Wizard's solar power project in Whyalla - Why did Whyalla solar fall over ?.
On Friday Climate Spectator reported that a government agency (ARENA) had withdrawn $60 million in funding for a solar thermal mirror dish project planned for Whyalla in South Australia called Solar Oasis. This project planned to employ a technology held by a small company called Wizard Power, which is now in administration.According to the government, they withdrew funding because the proponent had failed to demonstrate timely progress on a range of measures necessary for the project to proceed to construction.
The story that has run in the media to date is that government was, to a large degree, responsible for many of the delays besetting the project. And that this is yet another example of the Australian government abandoning a promising solar technology which will probably be commercialised overseas....
Still it is a tale well worth telling because it holds important lessons for Australian politicians, public servants and the energy industry. It provides an insightful example of a broader, long-running saga of failure in Australian government attempts to support renewable energy via one-off grant programs that select projects via tenders.
It is a story of:
-- Politicians seeking big bang announcements and dramatic breakthrough technologies, in defiance of decades of experience that energy technology progresses through incremental improvement;
-- Technological proponents desperate for funding who have mutated their plans and projects to fit what politicians wanted, but with little demonstrated evidence that they could deliver;
-- Risk averse bureaucrats asked to evaluate and manage projects for which they had little technical expertise and experience; and
-- Precious little in the way of on the ground changes.