The petroleum-laden dust has settled on this year’s United Nations climate summit, COP29, held over the past fortnight in Baku, Azerbaijan. Climate scientists, leaders, lobbyists and delegates are heading for home.

Solcast, a DNV company, reports that the upcoming Australian summer is likely to see cloudier than usual conditions, potentially reducing solar generation across key regions, especially along the east coast.

Singapore could import large quantities of low-cost solar power from neighbouring countries using undersea cables, with the indicative cost being competitive with gas generation. Unlimited world-class pumped hydro energy storage is available in neighbouring countries in the range 50-5000 GWh to support very large scale transmission.

Australia is in the middle of an historic transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and this transition is not without challenges. Investment in new, large-scale renewable energy capacity has been slowed by grid bottlenecks, slow planning approvals, rising costs, and a lack of alignment between energy supply and demand. This has many experts fearing Australia will not meet its ambitious 2030 climate targets.

If you talk to any politician or even some sustainability experts, the one thing most of them will point to as we transition our electric vehicles on the road to net zero is a need to update the grid.

The pacific island nation of Tuvalu is on track to achieving its goal of 100% renewables by 2030, with the recent commissioning of a 500 kW rooftop solar project and 2 MWh battery energy storage system in it’s capital Funafuti.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s new and first national electricity market transition to renewables system security plan is future proofing the grid well ahead of a time when rooftop solar could potentially meet 100% of NEM demand.

A solar farm designed to withstand sustained wind speeds of almost 300 kph and a co-located battery energy storage system has been officially opened by developer APA Group in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Australia’s rooftop solar market has eased with the latest monthly data from industry analyst SunWiz revealing that national installation volumes dropped off by a marginal 1% in November compared to the previous month.

United States-headquartered technology company Itron, Inc has collaborated with Victoria-based gas and electricity distribution company Jemena to deploy its resource management system to manage rooftop solar generation in Australia.

Enphase Energy has released new software to help homeowners install larger solar and battery systems without major electrical panel upgrades. It uses real-time measurements from current transformers to make immediate decisions.

Forecasting efforts which brought Northern Territory projects back online impressed jurors in the highly competitive pv magazine Awards Projects category.

Renewables developer Global Power Generation has landed $2.3 billion in financing to boost development of its 1.8 GW portfolio of solar, wind, and battery energy storage projects in Australia.

The new TopoSmart+ software enables users to find the most cost-effective topography and design plan to install United States company GameChange Solar’s Genius Tracker solar mounts at a given location.

Building integrated PV can make a substantial contribution to Australia’s clean energy transition but one industry expert says a lack of understanding about the value and versatility of the technology means it remains underutilised.

Mining and energy giant Fortescue has secured a $10 million federal government grant to develop and build a 6 MW fast charger capable of charging battery electric heavy mining equipment.

British-owned energy storage specialist Pacific Green has revealed plans to build a large-scale battery in southern New South Wales after securing land “strategically” located near a suite of renewable energy generators and major transmission projects.

New research shows the importance of considering power plant dispatchability in PV project planning. An international team of scientists claim assessing a project’s levelised cost of energy could be misleading, especially with variable and sometimes negative electricity prices.

Construction of a synchronous condenser at Ararat Terminal Station in Victoria has begun and will help maintain to balance the state’s power generation and consumption, responding quickly to sudden changes in power demand to stabilise the grid.

The company’s new mobile app is designed to combine all operations for solar installers, from installations and commissioning to management and servicing, in one streamlined platform.

Renewables player Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has lauded the newly legislated Future Made in Australia Bill as a critically important initiative that can position Australia at the core of global clean energy supply chains.

Vast Renewables has unlocked $30 million of federal government funding which it says will help ramp up manufacturing capacity for its concentrated solar thermal technology and advance construction plans for its first large-scale solar thermal project.

Australian-listed battery materials and technology company Novonix has inked an offtake agreement for at least 32,000 tonnes of its synthetic graphite anode material with the battery manufacturing arm of global carmaker Volkswagen.

The research group led by Professor Martin Green has published Version 65 of the solar cell efficiency tables. There are 17 new results reported in the new version.

Sunways’ new three-phase inverters have efficiency ratings of up to 98.6% and European efficiency ratings of 98.2%. They are available in five versions, with power outputs ranging from 15 kW to 30 kW.

The Australian Energy Market Operator is pushing for the widespread implementation of “emergency backstop” measures to remotely switch off or dial down rooftop solar systems to help manage the growing impact of distributed PV on the nation’s electricity grid.

Clean energy infrastructure startup National Renewable Network aims to deploy no-cost solar and battery systems to 36,000 Australian homes over the next 18 months after raising $4.28 million in an oversubscribed funding round.

One of the biggest players in Australia’s surging battery energy storage system market says regulators and policy makers must establish effective frameworks for market access and get the market signals right to ensure continued investment.

Western Australia’s state-owned gentailer Synergy has completed the installation of Kwinana battery Stage 2, and together with Stage 1 will power 450,000 Perth households for up to four hours.

Chinese solar giant Trina Solar has lodged plans to build a 1 GWh battery energy storage system in Victoria as part of a broader strategy that aims to deliver more than 6.5 GW of large-scale renewable energy generation and storage projects across Australia.