Shaping Australia’s Renewable Energy
From Ormond to the frontlines of Australia’s clean energy transition, Will Mosley (2010) is helping pioneer RayGen’s world-first solar-plus-storage technology – proving that innovation, persistence and a bit of Aussie ingenuity can power a renewable future.
Sunday 13 March 2022 • 5 minute read
Working for solar-plus-storage tech company RayGen has been a rollercoaster of start-up highs and lows, but it has also given Will Mosley (2010) the opportunity to shape Australia’s renewable energy future on a major scale.Working for a renewable energy start-up sounds non-stop, but the reality can be quite different says Will Mosley, Chief Commercial Officer at solar-plus-storage tech company RayGen (and 2010-2013 Ormond resident).“No-one talks about those moments in start-ups when there’s nothing to do and no-one is picking up the phone. You have to be very self-motivated,” he says, recalling how difficult it was to find the right business model for the company’s powerful photovoltaic technology.
But while those early years of trial-and-error may have been challenging, Will had faith in the technology’s potential to support large scale renewable energy deployment in Australia.That belief has since paid off in spades. Late last year, RayGen closed the company’s latest capital raise at $55 million, not long after announcing plans to build the world’s largest ‘next-gen’ energy storage facility in Victoria. Their new investors include some big names in energy; among them AGL, Schlumberger, Chevron, and Equinor.RayGen’s technology captures solar energy and stores it in water, ready for when the sun stops shining but the lights need to stay on. This kind of storage solution is vital as grids struggle to cope with unreliable energy supplies from renewable sources and ageing coal-fired plants.The company has attracted such major global and local interest because its storage solution is an appealing alternative to the two technologies currently dominating the solar energy market: batteries and pumped hydro.Batteries are expensive and depend on the global availability of raw materials like lithium. Pumped hydro has location limitations. But RayGen’s technology only requires a big hole filled with water. “And we’re good at digging holes in Australia,” Will laughs.He acknowledges it has taken a “fair degree of emotion and change” to reach this point, as well as an unshakeable faith in the promise of the company’s extraordinary technology.
From solar-only, to solar-plus-storageWhen Will joined RayGen, it was a solar- only company. Its technology, which remains part of the solution now being deployed, captures the sun’s energy using a field of mirrors, and focuses it onto a tower-mounted photovoltaic receiver (the kind used by satellites in space). The beam generated is strong enough to melt steel.This process generates a valuable by-product: heat, and lots of it. Will and his colleagues searched for a market for the heat, at one point trying to sell it to dairies and abattoirs, before landing on their hydro storage solution.Energy can be stored as a temperature difference between two water reservoirs, but historically the inevitable heat loss makes this method too inefficient to be used commercially. But when the storage reservoirs are co-located next to RayGen’s tower-mounted photovoltaics, the by-product heat can be used to solve the problem.“We created a really strong competitor to the largest storage technology today, which is pumped hydro, but it’s dramatically cheaper and better for the environment” says Will.Importantly, this technology offers a way to introduce more solar into the grid without causing local grid bottlenecks (as has happened in the past), which inevitably cause supply issues and associated price fluctuations.RayGen now have big plans for the near future. Their latest capital raise was all about bringing on board the money and expertise to scale quickly. AGL and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) are closely involved on a number of projects, to help make this happen.“We can’t take fossil fuels offline without a plan for what will replace them - that’s been disastrous elsewhere in the world.”“We can’t take fossil fuels offline without a plan for what will replace them – that’s been disastrous elsewhere in the world,” Will says. “Our technology offers a reliable way to help the transition.”The task facing Will and his RayGen colleagues is incredibly exciting, if not a little daunting. He says his time at Ormond has helped prepare him.“We’re building Australia’s largest clean energy manufacturing plant, and it’s a similar experience to being at Ormond, and coming up with an event that you see through from ideation to execution,” he says. “I think it’s rare as a young person to get a blank slate to create things, but that’s exactly what we got. That freedom to impact the world you’re in has shaped my ambitions.”
Will joined RayGen after completing his mechanical engineering degree (where he topped Thermodynamics) and working for McKinsey & Company for several years. He says this preparation has been invaluable for working on the hydro storage solution - from both technical and business perspectives.So, his advice to current students, is to study as much STEM as possible. “STEM skills are difficult to pick up once you leave the formal education environment,” he says.“Many of the world’s most interesting problems are in science, and those concepts can be difficult to grasp without having the first step on the knowledge rung.” But, he says, perhaps most importantly of all, he advises students to look after one another – particularly if they want to sustain an impactful career.“We are facing some huge problems in the world today, and the difference we can make as individuals doesn’t always have a clear on-ramp. It can be overwhelming sometimes. So, look after yourself and look out for each other.”Will’s advice to his Ormond self: “The organisations you join to develop your skills are probably different to the organisations where you’ll have the most impact on the issues you care about most. Take a mercenary approach to your first job out of university and extract as much skills and experience as possible, while protecting your sleep and non-work life. Don’t be too stressed if you can’t change the world or your company from a graduate position.”
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