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.

The Victorian Labor Government announced in August last year a $1.3 billion “Solar Homes” package to assist homeowners in installing solar PV systems. The scheme will be offered to 770,000 Victorian households for the next 10 years and is in addition to the Federal STC ‘rebate’.

South Australia’s renewables, particularly wind, have received firm dispatchable back-up as Barker Inlet Power Station begins generating energy for the first time.

The New Zealand Rural Connectivity Group will use Redflow zinc-bromine flow batteries to store energy in off-grid telecommunication sites.

Australia’s east coast is ablaze, with worse weather conditions set to fan the flames in coming days. Telecommunications is one industry threatened by changing climate conditions, and Singtel has sought to prepare its people and its infrastructure for the risks of the future while at the same time reducing its own carbon footprint.

Market intelligence company Navigant Research has developed a country forecast of the global market. Incentives and pricing will be the main driver of installations, though the market will continue to be concentrated in certain key regions for now.

Fossil fuel giant Shell is set to make its foray into Australia’s electricity market after shareholders in electricity retailer ERM Power voted in favour of a $617 million takeover bid.

Scientists at Princeton have found solar and wind energy offer the added environmental benefit of reducing water usage, by comparison with hydroelectric dams. Their findings, say the researchers, could have a positive impact on groundwater sustainability in drought-prone regions such as California, where they conducted a case study.

A result of a collaboration between global accounting and financial services firm KPMG, Canadian gas giant ATCO, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), H2City can be used to assess the costs and benefits of regional town or municipality switching to hydrogen.

Known for its blockchain-based peer-to-peer platform that allows energy trading between households, Power Ledger is now readying for the first large-scale commercial rollout of its technology in Australia. The Perth-based company has partnered with electricity wholesaler Powerclub to allow households to pool net solar and battery storage and act as a virtual power plant.

As more and more shopping centres across Australia start to utilise solar PV atop their premises, carparks are becoming increasingly popular amid a lack of rooftop space. A solar array covering three double-parking bays at Dunsborough Centrepoint Shopping Centre will not only offer shade for shoppers but also almost completely cover the site’s daytime energy needs.

The Asian Development Bank has signed off a grant for the South Pacific island nation to move on its plans to be 100% renewable by 2025.

Brisbane-based Tritium is quickly becoming a world leader in EV charging technology as the company rapidly expands across Europe and the United States.

Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to 2°C, and as close as possible to 1.5°C. The bad news is that four years on the best that we can hope for is holding global increases to around 1.75°C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.

A team of scientists led by the University of Glasgow has discovered a more efficient method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity which it says could almost double the amount of hydrogen produced per millivolt.

The Smart Energy Hub can operate in electrolysis mode to store renewable energy as hydrogen, or in fuel cell mode to produce electricity and heat from previously produced hydrogen or methane. Its developers are the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and start-up Sylfen.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) expects to see further declines in Marginal Loss Factors (MLFs) next financial year on a number of grid-scale PV projects, primarily in south-west News South Wales and north-west Victoria.

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.

Chinese module giant Jinko Solar chose Australia for the launch of its Tiger module series, at the All-Energy show in late October. The Tiger incorporates three innovations, but perhaps most notably a tiled module configuration – sometimes referred to as paved. pv magazine Australia caught up with Jeff Zhou, Jinko’s Director Product Management to find out what makes it purr.

The second stage of the first grid-scale solar plant in Australia, the Greenough River Solar Farm, will deploy German power electronics, with SMA announcing it has picked up a contract to supply the 30 MW development.

Australia’s rooftop PV has become the country’s biggest potential energy resource. To harness it requires that millions of household and commercial generators cede control of their hard-won, sunny patch. A new research entity has been launched to understand energy consumers’ passions and motivators, and facilitate a fair and equitable social contract — no pressure!

Hybrid home battery/inverter systems were the hot ticket at All Energy Australia last month. Those that provide back-up capacity will change the lives of people living in blackout-prone areas.

Australian manufacturer RedEarth has announced a new energy storage system for the Australian commercial and industrial market using technology from the global engineering and technology company, Siemens.

Genex Power has failed to lock in a previously announced offtake agreement with EnergyAustralia for its landmark Kidston hub in northern Queensland and requested a trading halt with the ASX on their securities.

Hydro Tasmania has released a white paper pushing the island state’s claims to become the Battery of the Nation via upgrades to the Victoria-Tasmania interconnector, an effort to unblock the backlog of solar and wind.