Described as a “masterclass” in shareholder activism, Perth-based mining technology company TNG Limited, owner of the major vanadium Mount Peake Project, has had its leadership team collapse with former AFR columnist elected as the new director, winning 95% of the vote during the company’s AGM.

The First Nations Clean Energy Network, a group launched in November 2021 to ensure Indigenous communities share in the benefits from renewables, is releasing new guides to help industry and government engage with First Nations communities.

Civil and building works have now been completed on the site of the Northern Territory’s $45 million (USD 30.2 million) big battery, known as the Darwin-Katherine Battery Energy Storage System. The 35 MVA battery is being delivered by Hitachi Energy and will deploy Virtual Synchronous Machine technology, allowing it to provide virtual inertia and system strength services to the grid.

An irrigation community has built a 786 kW floating solar array on a small water reservoir in Murcia, Spain. The facility will provide power for a solar water pumping system, a desalination unit, and the community itself.

The ACCC, Australia’s consumer watchdog, has begun contacting almost 5,000 households as part of an updated recall on LG solar batteries prone to overheat and catch fire, with the watchdog noting the dangerous products may fall under various brand names. The news comes as NSW Fire and Rescue reported a massive spike in battery fires for 2022.

With the US offering tremendous capital to “friendshore” its renewable supply chains, the cofounder of a major renewables investor, David Scaysbrook, says President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act could turn Australia into a critical mineral and rare earth powerhouse. “The question is, do we have the stomach for that?” Scaysbrook asks. For Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, it’s a matter of the government taking a whole system approach and going early.

Queensland-based ReNu Energy has announced “firm commitments” for a capital raising of $4.5 million (USD 3 million) which it says will progress its green hydrogen projects in both Brighton and Launceston in Tasmania, as well as in Indonesia’s Riau Archipelago.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, effectively the federal government’s green bank, has been allocated a further $500 million (USD 332 million) to invest in the commercialisation of renewable energy, energy efficiency and other technology innovations.

Calls for the Albanese government to adopt a Renewable Energy Storage Target are growing, with an alliance of organisations visiting Australia’s Parliament to lobby for the move.

Dutch company Photon Energy Group has acquired its first utility scale solar and battery project, opting for a venture 500 kilometres northwest of Sydney which it says will become a “prototype” for its European portfolio.