A fire at one of Australia’s biggest lithium mines has left it unable to process ore for the past days. The fire at Mineral Resources’ Wodgina mine in Western Australia has since been brought under control and the company says shipping will not be impacted.

The Victorian government will repay, with interest, electric vehicle owners who paid a road-user charge later deemed unconstitutional by Victoria’s High Court.

Investment in Australia’s renewable energy sector is more than 10 times lower than where it should be to reach 2030 targets, according to the Clean Energy Council calculations. Australia’s “sluggish” large-scale segment is the result of a confluence of issues, and illustrates the urgent need for the federal government’s newly supercharged Capacity Investment Scheme.

Cue, a town in Western Australia’s midwest, has installed 259 kW of solar and a 336 kWh battery system to wean itself off diesel. The installation is part of Horizon Power’s Midwest Solar Program and belongs within a much larger state-wide transformation.

Sunshine Hydro and project partner Energy Estate have signed an agreement to give First Nations stakeholders a 20% equity option in the companies’ Djandori Gung-i Superhybrid project at Miriam Vale, Queensland. The project proposes to deliver up to 600 MW of pumped hydro capacity and up to 300 MW of hydrogen electrolysers.

Having completed first prototype testing outside the lab for its green hydrogen photocatalytic water splitting technology, joint venture company Sparc Hydrogen has been working on its pilot plant study, selecting a site “proximal to Adelaide.”

Australian thermal storage company, Graphite Energy, has broken ground on its Lake Cargelligo facility in New South Wales which aims to demonstrate how renewable energy and agriculture can coexist through agrivoltaic and green house systems.

Australia’s National Broadband Network (nbn) Corporation has signed an offtake deal with Greek developer Mytilineos to take 59 GWh per annum from its Munna Creek solar farm north of Brisbane, Queensland.

Extreme weather is a growing risk to solar farms. Future-proofing through advanced technologies, leveraging data from novel sources, and by building both collaboration and acceptance of risk is vital, but rarely achieved today for a number of reasons. Insurers, lenders, developers, contractors and manufacturers come together here to discuss solutions to the intractable problem of weather risk.

Akaysha Energy has expanded the scope of its Victorian Elaine battery from 800 MWh to 1244 MWh, growing the project’s capacity more than 50% due to its long duration capability of four hours, pv magazine Australia has been told.