Australia Telescope National Facility

Energy Solutions for Next-Generation Radio Telescopes

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Over the next decade a number of huge, distributed radio astronomical facilities are planned. The largest of these will be the "Square Kilometre Array" - an international radio telescope for the 21st century. About half of the million square metres of collecting area of the SKA will be concentrated at a single region of a few kilometers diameter. The remainder will be distributed in "stations", each a few hundred metres in diameter, spread out to continental distances (3000-5000km).

The timeline for the SKA will select a site in 2006, followed by the antenna design in 2007. Construction of the SKA will start from about 2009 onwards.

As a precursor to the SKA, the LOFAR (low frequency array) radio telescope will have its site selected at the end of 2003 and be built from about 2006 onwards.

Both LOFAR and the SKA are significant projects with projected budgets of AU$200M and AU$2000M respectively.

Due to its low inland population density and low background radio signal levels, Australia has a number of superb sites for these telescopes. Our current estimates for the SKA suggest that power systems will account for one-quarter of the infrastructure development costs. There are substantial capital and operating gains to be made by developing novel, reliable energy sources.

CSIRO-ATNF invites you to a one-day workshop to discuss the development of novel energy solutions for these distributed telescopes and welcomes short contributions to the workshop.

The workshop will include

- An overview of International Project Developments
- Introduction to the SKA and LOFAR concept designs, configurations and power requirements
- Site infrastructure features

The outcome of the workshop will be the development of a co-ordinated research and development plan to include all interested parties.

For further details and to register for the workshop please see http://askac.atnf.csiro.au/meetings/2003-09-10-Energy