New Zealand is set to have its first big battery by 2024, after Meridian Energy awarded a contract to build the 100 MW / 200 MWh Ruakākā Battery Energy Storage System to Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies.

Shell Energy has acquired the development rights for a 500 MW / 1000 MWh battery located at the former Wallerawang coal power station site, near Lithgow in the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales.

The independent review into Australia’s carbon credit scheme has concluded that the scheme is not fundamentally flawed, but could be improved by greater transparency and changes to its governance.

Proposed changes to one of Australia’s most consequential emissions reductions policies, the Safeguard Mechanism, have been announced by Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen. “This is the biggest climate policy that they nation will be debating this year so it’s very important it’s done right,” Glenn Walker, head of advocacy and strategy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, told pv magazine Australia.

Major shopping centre landlord, Vicinity Centres, has teamed up with Enel X to potentially deploy up to 50 MWh of cumulative energy storage capacity. The partnership kicks off with two battery fit outs in Victoria and New South Wales, and follows a $73.2 million (USD 50 million) solar rollout across Vicinity’s shopping centres.

Canberra-based startup Syenta has developed a 3D printer capable of printing highly complex and functional electronics like photovoltaics, batteries, sensors and more, promising to do so in ways that are faster, cheaper and using less energy. The technology, which saw an the Australian startup reach the global grand-finals of the global ClimateLaunchpad program, has the potential to reshape both how renewable technologies are manufactured, and their actual performance, the team tells pv magazine Australia.

Investment and forecast revenue from Australian resources critical to low-emissions energy technologies has grown dramatically in 2022, federal government reports find. The forecast export earnings from critical minerals has grown 50% in the year, while hydrogen projects now make up the nation’s largest single component by value, though in a highly speculative form.

FRV Australia has reached financial close on its Walla Walla Solar Farm thanks to a PPA with Microsoft. The company is also progressing its second big battery in Australia, the 250 MW / 500 MWh Gnarwarre battery in Victoria, after winning support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Australian company GenusPlus Group has been awarded a $15 million (USD 9.9 million) contract with Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) to design and construct a 275 kV substation at FFI’s Green Energy Manufacturing Centre in Gladstone, Queensland.

A the newly operational electric bus depot in Sydney’s west illustrates the infrastructure required to run an electric bus fleet, but also demonstrates that an electric bus fleet requires less charging than originally forecast.