The solar tower and heliostat field at CSIRO's National Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales.

CSIRO gets sun smart at the National Solar Energy Centre

The Solar Centre is a facility available for solar thermal energy research and product development.

• 11 April 2006 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Features of the NSEC
• Solar troughs
• Solar towers
• Research partners

The National Solar Energy Centre (NSEC), located in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, on the same site as the CSIRO Energy Centre, is a joint program between CSIRO Energy Technology and the Energy Transformed Flagship.

The NSEC is a research and demonstration facility, specialising in advances in innovative solar technologies in collaboration with other national and international research institutes.

Features of the NSEC

The NSEC is the only solar thermal research facility of its type in Australia and home to the largest high concentration solar array in the Southern Hemisphere.

At peak operation it is capable of generating enough electricity to power more than 100 homes.

The NSEC consists of three main elements:

• high concentration tower solar array that uses 170 mirrors to generate more than 500 kW of energy, capable of achieving peak temperatures of over 1 000 °C
• low concentration linear solar array - solar troughs - that generates hot fluid at temperatures around 250 °C
• control room facility housing the centre's communications and control systems which also serves as an elevated viewing platform.

The solar concentrators are currently being used to develop two technologies - solar troughs and solar towers.

Solar troughs

The low concentration array provides thermal energy that drives a small, high-speed turbine. This turbine is designed for use in remote power applications and distributed generation markets.

Thermal storage will be used to overcome the issues of transient sunlight.

This system will produce:

• electricity
• heating
• cooling and chilling
• desalination.

Solar towers

The high concentration array is used to provide the high temperatures needed to produce SolarGas, a syngas mixture that contains 25 per cent more energy than the natural gas feeding into the process.

Solar hydrogen can potentially be extracted from this SolarGas. SolarGas and solar hydrogen provide all the benefits of solar energy with the convenience of gas, and in this way enable solar energy to be stored and transported.

The technology also serves as a transitional route toward higher levels of solar penetration into the energy mix.

Research partners

CSIRO Energy Technology and the Energy Transformed Flagship use the NSEC to promote collaboration among Australian and international researchers.

This project is proudly supported by:

• International Science Linkages programme established under the Australian government's innovation statement: Backing Australia's Ability
• NSW Government's Sustainable Energy Research & Development Fund (SERDF).

Read more about CSIRO’s work in Renewable Energy.