Smart move to be in 'robust' renewables

THERE is no reason why the exponential rates of development seen in small computers and mobile telephones should not be replicated in the field of renewable energy technologies.
Though the economics are not yet apparent in other than niche markets, it is a smart move to be working on renewables now, according to Martin Thomas, Managing Director of the Australian Co-operative Research Centre for Renewable Energy (ACRE).
Renewable energy is no longer a scientific dream, he says. Its time has come as a robust technology in the market place of the world.
Developing countries are seen as the markets of primary importance for renewable energy technology, and ACRE's products will be marketed very effectively to meet the challenge of international competition and overcome the lack of real renewable-energy product awareness.
"There are currently more than two billion people living well away from conventional power sources, or at the extremities of power grids where reliability and quality of service are often in question," Martin Thomas says.
Outback
"Australia -- with its vast 'outback' -- has a competitive advantage in assisting develop areas that are not on electricity grids. We have hundreds of aboriginal communities, mining settlements and pastoral stations in these remote regions as a ready market for our rapidly-developing renewable energy technology.
"Ironically, small remote communities -- whether in developing countries or Australia's outback -- instead of being seen as deprived of 20th century technology are now the crucibles of 21st century technology. For it is here, where electric grids have not yet reached, that some of the most exciting developments of small-scale renewable energy technology is occuring."
The renewable technology is not just producing electricity for household purposes. There are already viable technologies for solar water pumps, solar desalination units and solar energy for waste management systems.
The challenge for ACRE -- an incorporated joint venture involving partners throughout Australia and New Zealand -- is to develop rigorously-tested, commercial products from the wealth of ideas flowing from its researchers in universities, small to medium enterprises (SMEs), energy utilities and the CSIRO.
It will have the added benefit of being co-located on Murdoch University's Enterprise Park with the United Nation's first Centre for the Application of Solar Energy (CASE), and the Murdoch University Energy Research Institute (MUERI), and with the ability to draw on the expertise of Murdoch's Institutes for Science and Technology Policy and Environmental Science.
ACRE, part of a national $1.5 billion Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) initiative involving 62 centres, is helping to develop a more innovative research culture in Australia through emphasis on commercial exploitation of outcomes.
Driving Force
"CRCs are the driving force in changing the way Australia applies its science and technology," Martin Thomas says. "The Centres are alive with ideas -- good, bad and brilliant. But all are committed to the long process -- 10 years or more -- of research, development and demonstration to the point where product marketing and financial return can be expected."
ACRE's initial funding comes from the Commonwealth's investment of seed capital for the first seven years; investment from the Energy Research and Development Corporation and support from state governments. But by far the greatest source of funding is from the core participants -- the member universities, the SMEs and their associated industrial collaborators and the member utilities.
After the initial seven years cash flows from operations must provide for the ongoing business life of ACRE and its participants. "To attract 'serious money' the technologies will need to be reliable, capable of manufacture, user friendly and potentially the best and most economic of their kind," Martin Thomas says.
As the head of another Murdoch CRC says: "We live on our wits."

Director of ACRE, Martin Thomas

See also
No doubting Thomas... ACRE partners in energy research Energetic response Tropical technology