A PLAN to build the world’s tallest tower on the edge of the Australian Outback moved a step closer to reality yesterday when experts ruled it commercially viable.

The tower would stand at the centre of a state-of-the-art solar electricity plant, and would be 1,000m (3,280ft) high. The CN communications tower in Toronto, at present the world’s tallest building, is 550m tall.

The projected plant would be built near the fruit-growing town of Mildura, on the border of Victoria and New South Wales, and the tower would be visible at least 62 miles away.

A solar greenhouse with a 7.2km (4½-miles) circumference will be spread around the base of the tower and heat air so that it is about 30C (86F) hotter than air at the top. The temperature difference will create an updraft of about 50kmh (30mph), which will drive a bank of 32 turbines. At night, tubes filled with water heated during the day will allow the station to continue to produce power.

It will take 2½ years for the plant to generate power equivalent to the amount of energy consumed in its construction.

Designers hope that the station will generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes, but energy production will raise only 65 per cent of the station’s revenue. The remaining revenue will be raised from tourists wanting to visit a lookout at the top of the tower, farmers growing crops under the greenhouse’s canopy and telecommunications companies using the tower for transmissions.

“The success of the pre- feasibility study signals the go-ahead towards full commerciality and is one of the most significant decisions in the progress of the solar tower to date,” Roger Davey, chief executive of Enviromission, the company behind the project, said.

“The economic benefits illustrated in the study’s financial modelling are adequate to ensure the commerciality of solar tower development, taking into account revenue expected from energy generation, associated derivatives and potential revenue from naming rights.”

The power tower’s viability has been reinforced by the signing of a preliminary agreement with AFGL, Australia’s biggest electricity retailer, which plans to feed the energy into the national grid.

A similar solar station, built as a prototype just south of Madrid in 1982, delivered a steady stream of power for seven years. Using a greenhouse with a circumference of 240m and a central chimney that rose 195m above the ground, the station produced a consistent output of 50kW.

Australia’s sunny climate lends itself to the exploitation of solar power, which is already used extensively in homes and factories. Some towns in the Outback are almost completely run by solar energy, even having their road signs and public telephones powered by the Sun’s rays.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs