It’s been just over 24 hours since Anthony Albanese was sworn in as the new prime minister of Australia and already his government is coming under heat for its longstanding refusal to block the 114 coal and gas projects under development in Australia, especially the recently approved Scarborough and Beetaloo projects. With a number of seats still in doubt, Labor may need to up its ambition with the ‘Greenslide’ election on Saturday leaving little doubt about Australian’s desire for climate action.

Chinese inverter brand Sungrow has signed a 79 MW inverter and 176 MWh battery energy storage contract with Sydney-based hydrogen battery company Lavo. The contract will see Sungrow add its storage solution to 16 mid-scale solar farms in Victoria.

Reclaim PV Recycling and the Circular PV Alliance (CPVA) have announced a partnership which will see the pair work together to develop standards and testing procedures to support the reuse and resale of solar panels in Australia. The union comes after Reclaim PV found more than 31% it collected in a Queensland region could be considered for reuse rather than recycling.

New Zealand’s government this week unveiled its plan to cut emissions and fund the clean energy transition, featuring policies like a ‘scrap and replace’ scheme to incentivise electric vehicles and funding for electrifying industry. The NZ$2.9 billion (AU$2.6 billion) plan has received mixed reviews, with Greenpeace saying it has overlooked the country’s most glaring problem.

With Australia’s presence felt strongly at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam last week, state governments are working to secure European markets through partnership agreements. Yesterday, New South Wales signed an initial agreement with Denmark which will see the distant pair support one another on matters of decarbonisation technology and trade. Just a few days earlier, Queensland’s government signed an MoU with the Netherland’s Port of Rotterdam to collaborate on opportunities to develop a hydrogen export supply chain.

The Commonwealth government backed Clean Energy Regulator on Tuesday confirmed 17 hydrogen projects across Australia have signed up to participate in its ‘Guarantee of Origin’ scheme.

The hydrogen electrolyser subsidiary of German giant Thyssenkrupp has opened a new office in Perth, Western Australia in a bid to capture some of the region’s green hydrogen frenzy.

An unlikely union has been discovered by members of ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science, who have found a way to control the growth of phase-pure perovskite crystals for next-generation photovoltaics using water.

Some believe Australia has begun to tip over the “solar cliff,” reaching penetrations that are becoming disruptive to the balance of the grid and to the business models of solar companies themselves. Following notable exits from the market, alarm bells are ringing for solar companies to offer more than just solar installations, writes pv magazine’s Bella Peacock.

The southern tip of Western Australia will soon be the focus of an ocean energy project which is hoping to match end-users to ocean energy solutions and eventually build a “physical marketplace using an integrated microgrid approach” – though exactly what this involves remains somewhat vague.