March 2022

Chinese PV technology manufacturer Trina Solar has unveiled a new solar module for residential and commercial applications, choosing the Australian market for the global launch of its latest rooftop panel.

Australia’s largest energy retailer Origin Energy has ramped up plans for the delivery of large-scale renewable energy projects as it prepares to replace the capacity set to be withdrawn from the grid with the impending closure of the nation’s biggest coal-fired power station.

Mine sites across Western Australia are decarbonising after Zenith Energy and modular solar pioneer 5B signed an Ecosystem Framework Agreement-Deployment, which will see 5Bs rapidly deployable Maverick solar systems installed along with battery energy storage systems at multiple mine sties.

Ratings agency ICRA has estimated Indian green hydrogen will cost that much if produced at sites featuring clean energy generation capacity and electrolysers. That is between US$0.5–$1 per kilogram cheaper than in locations where the two systems are not co-located, with the saving possible due to a reduction in open-access, intra-state grid charges.

The Korean manufacturer and the German research centre were able to improve the performance of their jointly developed tandem solar cell by almost one percentage point.

Over the weekend, Angus Taylor effectively handed over billions to carbon credit aggregation companies born of the increased price of Australia’s carbon credits – without any clear reasoning. This “weird” decision, as Bruce Mountain called it, stumped many but the Australia Institute told pv magazine Australia it’s just one of many moves the Morrison government has made to increase the supply of carbon credits and depress their price – a strategy which seems curiously misaligned with the scheme’s stated purpose of reducing emissions.

Fortescue Future Industries and Airbus have formed a partnership, saying they will work together to realise a green hydrogen-based aircraft by 2035.

The London-based analyst has published a series of clean tech predictions for the year which also highlighted the rising proportion of sub-5MW solar projects in the global market, and cheaper clean energy financing costs even as panel prices continue to rise.

A Spanish consortium is equipping one of Madrid’s largest metro and bus stations with a hybrid system that combines PV, geothermal pumps, and vanadium redox flow batteries to provide cooling and heating.

With Australia’s unstoppable clean energy transition picking up pace, the question of jobs and how to reskill fossil fuel workforces is again at centre stage. Over the weekend, the Victorian government announced an initiative to encourage women to enter the male-dominated industry, while the federal government announced it would begin delivering reports on energy sector jobs to avoid skills shortages.