Work is about to commence on a diesel-solar hybrid power station for the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.
Energy Minister Mike Nahan announced yesterday Horizon Power would start site works in January on a two megawatt facility at the observatory*, which is around 315 kilometres north-east of Geraldton.
The State Government has given its approval enabling Horizon Power to execute a power supply agreement with the CSIRO for the provision of electricity to the observatory.
“The project draws on Horizon Power’s experience to deliver remote renewable hybrid power solutions and develops a capability that can be leveraged to other projects,” he said.
Construction is being supported by a $10 million investment from Royalties for Regions and a further $5.5 million from the State Government’s consolidated revenue. Since December 2008, Royalties for Regions has invested billions of dollars of WA’s mining and onshore petroleum royalties in more than 3,500 projects across regional areas of the state.
Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) is home to CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope and a wide-field, low-frequency dipole array – the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA).
ASKAP is made up of made up of thirty-six 12-metre diameter antennas working together as a single instrument.
The ASKAP and MWA installations are precursors to the to the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project.
Involving institutions from more than 20 countries, the SKA will be the largest radio telescope ever constructed. The SKA will be co-hosted in two locations- Australia and South Africa – and will be used to hopefully help answer fundamental scientific questions about the universe over its expected 50 years of operation
“The eyes of the world are on Western Australia as the observatory is already producing outstanding scientific results in advance of the SKA,” said Western Australia’s Premier and Science Minister, Colin Barnett.
*In July CSIRO stated it had appointed EMC Solar Construction to engineer, procure and construct a 1.6 MW solar power station at the facility. It isn’t clear from the state government media release the above was drawn from as to the activities/roles of the various parties involved regarding the solar hybrid facility.
