Joe Biden’s surreptitiously-named Inflation Reduction Act has been described as the world’s biggest piece of climate change legislation, as big in its impact as the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Scott Hamilton and Joanna Kay argue Australia must act now to keep capital and talent onshore.

“To ensure Australian consumers continue to have access to reliable electricity supplies, it’s critical that planned investments in transmission, generation and storage projects are urgently delivered.”

With strong government backing; a systems approach to development that views each component of hydrogen production and delivery as a whole; and growing demand, Australia could be on track for a commercially viable green hydrogen industry by 2030.

Vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa.

Addressing climate change means enduring some economic pain in the early part of this century to avoid worse outcomes in the long run. But recently the narrative has shifted from pain to opportunity.

The global transition to carbon-free energy has fallen behind pace to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a key threshold set forth by the Paris Agreement.

Spanish tracker giant STI Norland has expanded to Australia with a new subsidiary office in Melbourne. The company is arriving on our shores with a keenness to compete with tracker suppliers who already have their foot in the door. With no solar farm too big or too small, STI Norland Australia CEO Alan Atchison sat down with pv magazine Australia to talk about how the company plans to make tracks Down Under.

GRS has passed the 550 MW mark in its Australian portfolio with the energisation of its 39 MW Molong Solar Farm in Central West New South Wales. The project is now on the verge of grid connection tests and thereby closing in on full-fledged generation.

The development lender has followed up a $600 million loan for distribution infrastructure in eastern Indonesia with a $430 million credit line for installations in India.

The performance and warrantable 10-year capacity of LG Energy Solution’s third-generation Prime series are among features designed to turn homeowners’ heads.

Vanadium explorers Technology Metals Australia and Australian Vanadium Limited will look to accelerate the development of the critical battery mineral in Western Australia after agreeing to a merger of their adjoining projects in the state’s mid-west.

Economic modelling published by independent think tank Beyond Zero Emissions shows that establishing clean industry hubs and servicing them through shared infrastructure such as transmission lines could save Australian taxpayers millions.

A new $10 million (USD 6.42 million) grants initiative that eliminates the need for Victorian companies that install solar panels, solar hot water systems and heat pumps at scale to apply for individual rebates is now open for expressions of interest.

Plans to develop a large-scale green hydrogen production and export facility at Port Bonython in South Australia have received a significant boost with the state and federal governments investing $100 million (USD 64.4 million) to develop infrastructure that will support the proposed $593 million project.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The Australian Energy Market Commission has declared regulatory reform is required to maximise the benefits of the “record amounts” of household energy devices including rooftop solar systems and small-scale batteries that are connecting to the power grid.

The share of renewables in Australia’s main electricity grid has reached a new high, with rooftop and grid-scale solar, wind and hydro combining to deliver more than 70% of the total underlying demand on Wednesday.

Australia’s biggest coal miner has inked a major renewable energy deal that will utilise solar, wind and pumped hydro to provide about half the forecasted electricity demand of its central Queensland operations.

Chinese company GoodWe will now be offering specialised carport solar panels to the Australian market, which it says are designed to overcome issues around water drainage and wiring.

Mytilineos’ 75 MW Wyalong Solar Farm in the New South Wales Riverina region has now begun feeding into the grid, with almost two thirds of its generation contracted to NBN Australia, the national broadband network.

The rise of cost-effective TOPCon cell technology last year led to a ‘surge’ in production demand for solar n-type cell technology, with leading industry analysts TrendForce prophesying PERC cell capacities ‘may’ be phased out in two to three years. The company’s experts, however, warn that oversupply for p-type cells and modules may increase the price gap between n-type and p-type products in the upcoming months.

West Australian natural hydrogen startup H2EX will work with Adelaide-headquartered space exploration company Fleet Space Technologies to accelerate the discovery of naturally occurring hydrogen systems in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.

Hitachi Energy has delivered a modular solution to electrify a 20 MW electrolyser to produce hydrogen to heat steel before rolling, while Enapter has unveiled its AEM electrolysers for industrial and refuelling pilot projects.

Indian scientists have produced high-purity polysilicon ingots from recycled solar cells using “spark plasma sintering” (SPS), and claim they may achieve a purity level comparable to commercially available products.

Startup accelerator EnergyLab is showcasing its 2023 cohort of promising climate tech startups this morning. Ahead of the launch, pv magazine Australia caught up with participants Energy Synapse and PowerPlay.

Rystad Energy believes China could be on track for another record year in 2023, with expectations for more than 150 GW of new PV capacity. The Norwegian consultancy says the country could also potentially install 165 GW in 2024 and 170 GW in 2025.

A range of different factors can affect the productive lifespan of residential solar inverters.

Sodium-ion batteries could diversify the battery supply chain and take the weight off the shoulders of ubiquitous lithium-ion technology. pv magazine sits down with Florian Kogler, head of safety and user experience at Austrian sodium-ion battery business Kite Rise, to discuss the technology’s potential and the company’s development plans for batteries made in Europe.

German PV analyst Karl-Heinz Remmers looks at current price trends in the global and European PV industry. The figures he provides could explain how overcapacity and warehouses full of PV modules are affecting market prices.

Clean Energy Associates projects that major Chinese manufacturers will achieve a global solar module manufacturing capacity of 1 terawatt by the end of 2024. Furthermore, this capacity is projected to hit that same mark within China’s borders by 2025.

One month after formally opening its first operational grid-scale battery at the Torrens Island power station site in South Australia, AGL has confirmed that next month it will begin demolishing the adjacent gas-fired Torrens ‘A’ power plant.

Multiple factors affect the lifespan of residential battery energy storage systems. We look at the lifespans of batteries in the third part of this series.

The Western Australian government has awarded contracts for its 500 MW / 2,000 MWh big battery in Collie and the 200 MW / 800 MWh extension to the existing Kwinana battery. China’s CATL is set to deliver the battery units for both projects, while Spain’s Power Electronics will supply inverters.

Brisbane-based flow battery company, Redflow, has inked $4.4 million a deal with the US Department of Defence to deliver a prototype microgrid at a New York state airbase, with up to 1.4 MWh of zinc-bromide battery storage.

Lithium-ion batteries are generally safe and unlikely to fail, but they can catch fire if damaged, stored, or operated incorrectly. With calls mounting for development of engineering good practice, US-based Firetrace International suggests three steps that battery manufacturers, developers and operators should take into account.