Baseload solar prospect gets funding boost.

Just before last year's Federal Election, the Australian Government announced its support for commercialisation of a patented hydrogen-based storage technology developed by Melbourne-based Solar Systems, which says the technology will enable solar power facilities to deliver on-demand baseload power supply.

The government announced a contribution of $5 million towards first-stage development of the new technology, which will allow large-scale solar energy facilities to deliver power at night and during cloudy periods.

The company says the technology--which represents a $62 million investment over a seven-year timeframe--has been successfully demonstrated on a small scale.

Solar Systems has been developing a range of solar energy technologies since 1990, with a focus on reducing costs to make solar viable for large-scale implementation.

These technologies are based around solar concentrator photovoltaic technology to concentrate solar energy via mirror arrays before redirecting the concentrated energy to compact photovoltaic cells.

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The company has four solar power stations operating commercially in central Australia and is developing a $420 million, 154 megawatt solar power station--enough to meet the equivalent needs of 45 000 homes--for north-west Victoria, a project funded by the Federal and Victorian governments.