Coal miner Glencore is failing investors in its latest forecasts.

While much has been made of the ‘trilemma’ facing the Australia electricity network, Ray Wills from Future Smart Strategies argues that rapid change of energy technology, business models and social changes is resulting in rapid and difficult-to-predict changes.

As the deployment of renewable energy continues to expand around the world, driven by various inputs, such as capital allocation and investment, falling capital costs, competitive LCOE and various policy mechanisms, we are now moving towards a new era for renewable energy. ‘Renewables 2.0’ will have significant, wide-ranging consequences for all market players, as regulators reduce their support and power producers seek new revenue models. In this article, Duncan Ritchie, partner at Apricum – The Cleantech Advisory, will look at the key market developments for renewables, explode the myth of grid parity, highlight the need for flexibility and explain the importance of new financing solutions that are capable of meeting the new complexities brought about by ‘Renewables 2.0’.

Heath Frewin, the Head of Distribution at Energy Networks Australia sets out the “growing ethical dilemma” brought on by rising rooftop solar adoption.

The Canadian battery manufacturer says its order book has crossed the $1.5 million mark in less than two weeks after joining the South Australian Home Battery Scheme.

The growth in global energy demand is surging ahead of decarbonisation, concludes a new report released Thursday, but the opportunity is promising for solar PV to grow into the space and help reduce the emissions burden.

Around 40 residential properties across the port city of Fremantle, Western Australia, will be able to trade solar power using a blockchain-enabled platform. The trial is even open for residents who do not have solar PV on their rooftops.

Does renewable electricity raise or lower electricity prices? There is more to this question than meets the eye: are prices lower before or after renewable subsidies are recovered, how has variability been accounted for, how have changes in network costs been accounted for, and so on and on. Bruce Mountain, the Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Steven Percy, a research fellow at Victoria University set out new findings.

The California Building Standards Commission has approved the requirement that new homes integrate rooftop solar. This is expected to not only give a major boost to the state’s solar market, but to drive down costs.

The Clean Energy Council has tallied the numbers underlying Australia’s large scale renewables boom. And big PV is shattering all records, with almost $11.5 billion in projects currently being constructed.

2018 has been a watershed year for Australia’s PV sector, with the surge to rooftop solar uptake making the country the residential-PV capital of the world. And there’s a considerable potential room for growth, a whopping 50 GW a new study has found.

In an attempt to encourage more large scale renewable development while maintaining grid stability, Western Power has introduced its Generator Interim Access (GIA) mechanism for 900 MW of wind and large scale solar projects. The GIA will open the door for some PV power plant projects to go ahead in the state, if they agree to curtail production when instructed to do so by the grid operator.

The 2018 NSW Smart Energy Summit was crowded with attendees eager to hear former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, unfettered by party politics, address the state’s solar and renewables sector.

After around 1200 applications were lodged for the original 1500 packages in as little as two weeks, the Queensland government has introduced an additional 1000 battery grant packages to help households and small businesses cut their energy bills with the help of solar and storage.

The UNSW Sunswift solar car team has set a new record for the lowest energy consumption while driving across Australia in an electric car. The team completed the journey between Perth and Sydney two days ahead of schedule with the car’s energy consumption on the journey came in well below the previous record.

UNSW Sydney has partnered with Leadmicro to develop the next generation of PERC solar cells and fast-track their time to market. The Chinese PV production machinery manufacturer is donating $1 million Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) reactor to UNSW to test and adapt a new process for PERC cell solar cell production.

The world’s first Zephyr Solar High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite operating base has been officially established in the north of Western Australia. The unmanned aerial vehicle, running exclusively on solar power, will be operating out of Wyndham with the goal to provide observation and communications services to a range of customers.

A new report analyzing the world’s largest lithium-ion battery’s performance in the first year of operation shows the Hornsdale Power Reserve has delivered on high expectations of its performance and market impact. It has helped stabilize the grid, avoid outages and reduce system costs, as well as triggered a surge in uptake of similar fast response systems across Australia.

ACT gas network operator Evoenergy and the Canberra Institute of Technology have partnered to build a first of its kind hydrogen test facility at CIT Fyshwick. The station will test up to 100% hydrogen in deployments in which natural gas is currently used.

Hanergy and Environmental Technology Solutions (ETS) will partner to introduce the HanWall BIPV solution to Australia. The companies have signed a cooperation agreement, which targets 4.3 MW of HanWall installations.

The South Korean PV manufacturer saw sales increase slightly in the last quarter. Net losses, however, more than quadrupled compared to the previous period.

That would mean a market increase of around 25% on this year. Demand is predicted to become particularly strong in the second half of the year. Australia is forecast to see lower demand than usual in the first quarter, but also be among 16 nations worldwide that will add over 1 GW of solar capacity in 2019.

EPC contractor Decmil Group has selected Nextracker’s NX Horizon solar trackers for the 255 MW Sunraysia Solar Farm, one of Australia’s largest solar farms located in New South Wales.

The first shipments of Jinko’s new Cheetah module series will commence in January 2019. The module uses larger monocrystalline wafer, PERC cell technology and is available in either a half or full-cell format.

The system turns light of white-glowing molten silicon into electricity using specialized PV cells. The researchers claim that the concept could store electricity at around half the costs of pumped hydro. A single system comprising two ten meter tanks could power 100,000 households.

While little action is seen on the federal level, energy storage is increasingly coming to the fore as part of state and territory energy policies. With a rising number of residential battery subsidy schemes taking shape in Australia, funding appears to be slowly moving away from solar to energy storage. Such initiatives are poised to not only reshape the battery storage market, but also have a major impact on the grid, making it more reliable, responsive, and flexible.

After months of preliminary work, the time has come: With its PV+home storage network, sonnen GmbH has received prequalification from TenneT to participate in Germany’s primary control energy market. While it is currently allowed to deliver 1 MW, the goal is to supply 100 MW.

All state and national approvals have been secured for a massive wind project in central Queensland. The 800 MW wind farm is part of a major renewable energy hybrid project, which is planned to include up to 400 MW of solar and a battery energy storage facility that have already secured state approval.

The University of Queensland has completed the purchase of the $125 Warwick Solar Farm in the Southern Downs region, making it the largest solar asset in ownership of an Australian university. Lendlease will act as developer on the project.