Australia made its first moves to open up its energy industry in the 1990s, when the National Electricity Market (NEM) was first created, and many of the rules and regulations from back then are still in place today. But the rise of renewables in the 21st century, argues Clean Energy Investor Group Chair Rob Grant, necessitates a rethink of this market structure.

Utility-scale solar is booming in Australia. Quality assurance, especially solar panel testing, helps achieve better performance and lower costs. Best-practice testing is key, writes Michelle McCann, managing partner at PV Lab Australia, but must be planned and fully integrated into a project from an early stage. This integration ensures flow-through from panel manufacturers to commercial buyers and large project owners.

The Australian utility-scale PV and wind industries have just gone through a record two years of construction and commissioning. More specifically, writes Rystad Energy’s David Dixon, utility-scale PV has transformed from a megawatt-scale market to one measured in gigawatts. The resultant boom in utility-scale PV in the country has attracted developers, EPCs and OEMs, from at home and across the globe.

When Sony first commercially introduced lithium-ion batteries in 1991, the industry recognized their potential to revolutionize portable electronics. Ever since, there have been countless efforts to improve the technology, with many researchers focusing on energy density and longevity, in line with demand from emerging applications such as electric vehicles (EVs) and on-grid energy storage. Julian Jansen and Youmin Rong of IHS Markit discuss the effect of safety concerns on this rapidly growing global market.

A maturing PV market does not automatically deliver certainty in terms of technology roadmaps and industry dynamics. Crystalizing trends and anticipating developments is the business of analysts, so pv magazine assembled four of solar’s best to talk about prices, technology and market-defining policy developments.

A recent survey commissioned by Redback Technologies has found that almost a third of Australians lack understanding of solar, another barrier to the adoption by Australians of integrated solar and battery systems. pv magazine Australia sat down with Redback Technologies CEO Patrick Matweew to discuss.

The national science agency, CSIRO, has mapped the critical research steps Australia must take to realise a potential 7600 jobs and $11 billion a year by 2050 from the burgeoning hydrogen industry.

A University of New South Wales (UNSW) community survey has found majority support for the proposed Australian Carbon Dividend Plan, a plan to tax the biggest carbon emitters and redistribute to the Australian taxpayers.

Three NSW government facilities for aquatic and agricultural research and development are reducing their grid-dependence by utilising solar PV.

The transformation of South Australia’s energy system has taken another step forward with early site works at a green hydrogen facility near Adelaide. The plant will integrate what is billed as Australia’s biggest electrolyser of its kind.

A $280 million meat production recently unveiled by Hilton Foods Australia in south-east Queensland, is sporting one of the country’s biggest rooftop solar arrays.

The 72.5 kW curved-roof solar installation will generate almost half of the Noosaville Library’s electricity needs. The flexible panels used for the installation are manufactured by Dr Shi Zhengrong’ firm SunMan.

Residents of Stockland homes will be able to get a discount on their rooftop solar and batteries thanks to a new national scheme recently launched by the property developer.

Adelaide-based energy storage specialist 1414 Degrees has announced plans to acquire SolarReserve Australia II, which owns the Aurora Solar Energy Project in South Australia and two solar sites in New South Wales. The company proposes to use the Aurora site to build a massive 400 MW solar farm with progressive thermal storage capacity to several thousand MWh.

Australia has an undisputed competitive advantage when it comes to renewable energy, and many believe we can become a clean energy exportation superpower, but we have to reindustrialise ourselves first.

Yates Electrical Services, through its newly-formed retail arm YES Energy, is using automatic dispatching technology on its 40 MW solar fleet to avoid export during periods of negative prices. German monitoring provider Meteocontrol has introduced its new Remote Power Control feature to Australia, with YES Energy reporting that it has allowed it to “seamlessly” curtail production when required.

EOn has calculated the number of PV modules that could theoretically be installed on the Imperial space station from the popular film series. It concluded that even a small version of the station would be able to provide enough solar power to supply 2.5 billion households on Earth.

Western Australia’s South West has attracted the interest of Melbourne-based developer South Energy, which has proposed two utility-scale solar projects for the region. One has already secured development approval, while the other one will be discussed next week.

A survey run by the Clean Energy Council shows confidence in new clean energy investment continued to weaken over the past six months. While a big majority of industry representatives expect to hire more staff in the next 12 months, the biggest challenges to developing new projects remain unchanged with grid connection process and technical requirements and policy uncertainty at the top of their list of concerns.

University of New South Wales students have travelled to remote communities in Fiji in order to troubleshoot the challenges of renewable energy integration and come up with technical and design-based solutions to community needs.

Researchers have made a finding they say could vastly simplify and reduce the production cost of perovskite solar cells. Working with mixed halide perovskites, the group found a disordered chemical composition can improve device efficiency.

Chinese module supplier and project developer Risen Energy has increased its module warranty for its modules sold into the rooftop segment to 15 years. Representing an increase of three years, the warranty still trails the 25-year warranty covering modules from suppliers such as LG or Q Cells.

The third-quarter results for the inverter maker are in and look promising. All performance indicators are up for the steadily growing company.

The Solar Cutters were given the opportunity to meet Filippo Carzaniga, the CEO of Fimer, during All Energy last month to discuss the announcement in July 2019 that the company has acquired the ABB Solar business. Solar Cutters presented questions from within the Solar Cutters Community for better clarification on Fimer’s current market position and what changes, once the acquisition is ratified, will come into effect.

Chinese string inverter maker Ginlong has reported its best-ever quarterly revenue. The record highlights the shift in the global inverter market since Beijing’s U-turn on solar subsidies pushed Chinese companies abroad.

Stand-alone power systems (SPS) have reaffirmed its lead amongst technologies racing to transform energy in rural Western Australia.

Evergen is looking to boost its growth in Australia and expand overseas as it opens a major capital raising campaign to private and wholesale investors on VentureCrowd.

The Kidston solar-pumped hydro project is back on its feet after Japanese utility J-Power and Genex Power renegotiated their deal with the extension of funding provided by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Board earlier this month. The project had been thrown off-course after a shock decision by EnergyAustralia not to finalise a purchase agreement.

Under the business-as-usual scenario, Western Australia could use up its Paris-Agreement 1.5°C compatible carbon budget within 12 years but a massive ramping up of renewable energy capacity would unlock significant economic opportunities for the state, finds a report by Berlin-based science and policy institute Climate Analytics.

The University of Wollongong’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre has become the first building in Australia to achieve full marks under the world’s toughest sustainability standard for buildings, the Living Building Challenge. With 468 solar panels to support net-zero energy, an onsite rainwater system to enable net-zero water performance, and use of environmentally safe and reused building materials, the building is a demonstration of the value of the research the SBRC team carries out.