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.

UNSW researchers have found a new approach to photochemical upconversion, which involves converting low light particles into higher-energy light particles. The discovery has potential to unlock innovations in renewable energy, particularly solar, with the team flagging it could raise the efficiency limit of solar devices from 33.7% to 40% or beyond.

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.

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.

One of Australia’s best known solar recycling companies, Reclaim PV, has been handed down a windup notice by Victoria’s Supreme Court. The company’s insolvency highlights the deep issues of solar recycling and the complexity of trying to create circularity in an overwhelmingly linear approach.

The figures for large-scale certificates registrations across most of Australia this year are dismal, despite the nation adopting a far brighter policy landscape. “There’s a very large discrepancy between rhetoric and what’s actually occurring,” Sunwiz managing director Warwick Johnston tells pv magazine.

Gentari, a subsidiary of Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas, plans to build between 5 GW to 8 GW of solar, wind and battery projects in Australia by 2030. The ambition follows its acquisition and rebranding of Wirsol Energy, which marked the Malaysian company’s entry into the Australian renewable energy market.

New digital modelling technology has made visible 10 GW of untapped capacity in Australia’s existing electricity networks. “That 10 GW number is probably achievable without any meaningful incremental cost investment,” Neara cofounder Jack Curtis tells pv magazine Australia. “This is something that’s really only come into awareness of policy makers, and even the private sector, in past six months.”

Australian thermal storage company, Graphite Energy, has received development approval for a $29 million (USD 18.6 million) sustainable energy precinct in Lake Cargelligo, in the mid-west of New South Wales.

NASA has released an image of “fairy circle” clusters in the North Perth Basin of Western Australia, noting the formations have been discovered to naturally seep hydrogen gas from their perimeters.