Solar thermal powered green methanol plant wins planning consent in Port Augusta

Plans to develop a solar thermal powered methanol production facility that will supply green fuel for shipping and aviation have been given the all-clear to go ahead in Port Augusta, South Australia.

Australian concentrated solar thermal energy specialist Vast Renewables said on Thursday has received planning consent for Solar Methanol 1 (SM1), a concentrated solar powered plant slated to produce up to 7,500 tonnes a year of green methanol.

SM1, which Vast is co-developing with Mabanaft, will combine technology from Australian outfit Calix to capture the carbon dioxide produced in the making of cement and lime, as well as an electrolysis plant to produce hydrogen and a methanol plant.

The project will be powered by VS1, a co-located 30MW/288 MWh CSP plant, which will use Vast’s CSP v3.0 technology to provide renewable heat and electricity.

In February, the consortium announced that it had secured $A40 million in funding deals to underpin construction of the Port Augusta plant, including up to $A19.48 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena).

Another €12.4 million ($A20.5m) was committed from Projektträger Jülich on behalf of the German government, as part of the German-Australian Hydrogen Innovation and Technology Incubator program, or HyGATE.

“Planning consent is an important milestone for this major project for Port Augusta and South Australia,” said Vast CEO Craig Wood in a statement on Thursdsay.

“SM1 will produce low-cost green fuels, which can play an important role in decarbonising the global maritime industry. The combination of technologies can be scaled rapidly, acting as a catalyst for a green fuels industry in Australia and around the world.”

SM1 is proposed for the site that was to host one of the world’s biggest solar thermal projects, SolarReserve’s 150MW Aurora project that collapsed because of financing and technology problems.

Vast Solar, which has its own solar thermal technology proven at a small 1.1MW plant at Jemalong in NSW, is also partnering with local company 1414 to develop a 140MW big battery (with at least one hour storage) at the site.

It has also inherited from Aurora the promise of $110 million in concessional finance from the federal government to build its own 30MW solar thermal plant with eight hours storage.