Canadian-headquartered clean energy firm Amp Energy has secured the rights to develop a green hydrogen project with up to 5 GW of electrolyser capacity on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Amp has signed an agreement with iron ore miner Iron Road which owns the coastal site, including the Cape Hardy Port Precinct.

Australia federal Labor government has approved 11 new renewable energy and transmission projects in since the election in May 2022. There are currently another 95 renewable projects under assessment.

Seeking to commercialise hydrogen technology developed by the University of Western Australia, Perth-based Hazer Group has entered into a somewhat vague agreement with Japan’s Chubu Electric Power Company and engineering firm Chiyoda Corporation.

Australian renewable developer GMR Energy, formerly Maoneng, has started work on its 240 MW / 480 MWh battery project on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The company has entered into an early works agreement with network AusNet, and is aiming to complete the $330 million (USD 220 million) by 2024, two years after the company had originally forecast.

Community opposition to renewable projects tends to be dismissed as NIMBY-ism, an attitude of not-in-my-back-yard. To do so fails to recognise the character and potential claws of the globally growing movement, as well as the renewable sectors’ own role in rearing resentments. Australian reporter Bella Peacock investigates the emotional thread that ties the particularities of opposition movements together, and ways developers can defuse the charge.

A South Australian racecourse has now become a fully operational DC-coupled solar and battery farm. The Berri Energy Project, owned by retailer Flow Power, is part of the company’s strategy to build up to 50 MW of mid-scale (sub 5 MW) projects to supplement its offtake portfolio, Flow Power COO Byron Serjeanston told pv magazine Australia.

Virtual Power Plants, or VPPs, are relatively mature in Australia due to the country’s high penetration of, and familiarity with, distributed energy resources. But claims of VPP success and participation may be overblown, with a considerable gaps between the numbers some platforms are claiming and the realms of possibility.

Western Australia will now offer rural and metro-area residents in its main grid the same electricity supply. The move comes after a seemingly innocuous rule change saw regional customers unable to run their air conditioning at the same time as their cooktops – a drama pv magazine Australia first reported in July 2022 which led to sustained community pressure.

Canadian giant Brookfield, which is currently in the process of formally acquiring Origin Energy, has announced its partnership with little-known developer Greenleaf Renewables. The partnership, Brookfield said, will contribute to the 14 GW of renewable generation and storage it plans to build to decarbonise Origin.

Australia’s lithium and base metals like nickel, aluminium and copper are forecast to earn around $47 billion (USD 31.8 billion) in the current financial year, according to the Australian government’s latest forecasts.