The next few weeks should see progress on an entirely new energy system for Australia.

Local firm Vast Solar has developed what should be a low-cost, high-efficiency Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) generation plant near Forbes in central west New South Wales.

The Jemalong pilot plant has been set up to prove that CSP technology can be used in Australia, and will be ready for commissioning in coming weeks.

The facility features five modules of 700 mirrors (‘heliostats’), which concentrate the sunlight onto a receiver that sits atop a 27-metre tall tower.

Sodium is pumped up through the receiver to be heated up to 565 degrees Celsius, before heading back down to be stored in a tank.

The hot sodium can then be put through a steam generator when power is needed, which boils the water to generate steam and drive a turbine just like a coal-fired plant does.

“The big advantage with solar thermal is the storage,” James Fisher, chief technology officer of Vast Solar, has told reporters.

“Our storage costs around $25 a kilowatt an hour, compared to lithium ion batteries which cost about $300 a kilowatt hour.

“We can run 24 hours a day and providing base load is really the key to solar thermal,” he said.

“This sort of technology will put massive amounts of money into regional Australia if it takes off.

“But a problem is it's big money to develop it. These plants you can only build in large scale, so a tiny plant will be $100 million and a good-sized plant will be $500 million.

“Malcolm Turnbull's government is being very proactive on this sort of thing and innovation, which is where I squarely sit... so we're excited that we've got a government that understands that.

“I think we'll look back in 50 years and think; ‘Wow, what were we doing building coal mines to power a plant that has to run 24 hours a day when the sunshine's free?’”