AUSTRALIA is to build the world’s most advanced solar power station using thousands of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy and produce enough electricity to meet the needs of 45,000 homes.

Inspired by technologies used to power satellites, it will operate without producing any greenhouse gas emissions — which have been blamed for global warming — and will convert solar energy directly to electric current.

Taxpayers will shoulder about a third of the $A420 million (£170 million) cost of the project as the Government of John Howard, confronted with a crippling drought across the nation, urgently seeks ways to slow the effects of global warming.

Fields of mirrors — about 20,000 in total — will concentrate the power of sunlight by 500 times on to high-performance solar cells. Each cell produces about 1,500 times more power than that produced by a typical roof-top solar panel.

The power station, to be built near the town of Mildura in the southeastern state of Victoria, will spread its fields of mirrors and solar cells over about 800 hectares (2,000 acres) on several different sites in order to reduce the visual impact. The mirrors will rotate to track the Sun.

The builder, Melbourne-based Solar Systems, has been perfecting the technology for more than a decade. John Lasich, the technical director, said yesterday: “This is a new generation of solar technology.

“The secret is to be able to make a solar power module work about 1,500 times harder than typical solar panels. If you can do this . . . you have the recipe for an infinite supply of clean energy at an affordable price.”

The company has already built smaller solar power stations employing the new technology to supply electricity to some Aboriginal communities in the Outback.

California has a solar power station, larger than that planned for Victoria, which is located in the Mojave desert. But it employs older, thermal technology using the Sun’s energy to make steam to drive a turbine power generator.

Mr Lasich said that it was far more efficient to convert concentrated sunlight directly into electricity, as the Solar Systems plant would.

The company proposes to build a string of power stations across Australia to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about ten million tonnes a year by 2030. Australia’s emissions are among the highest in the developed world at about 540 million tonnes a year.

The country’s ageing, coal-fired power stations are a substantial contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The new solar power station will avoid the generation of 390,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually that come from a coal-fired station of similar capacity.

The announcement came as a new report said that Australians’ demand for home air-conditioning systems was straining the country’s electricity system. New South Wales will face blackouts and rocketing electricity prices within five years unless it increases electricity supplies rapidly, it said.

The report, by Australia’s energy market regulator, said that demand for electricity was mainly driven by sales of home air-conditioning systems. Peak demand now came on summer days rather than winter nights.

Air-conditioning systems, the report said, have quickly become a standard feature in new homes as Australia’s eastern states endure the continuing drought.

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