The owner of the 100 MW Merredin Solar Farm in Western Australia has confirmed it will look to accelerate its roll out of renewable energy projects in the Asia-Pacific region after raising more than $34 million in Series A financing.

Researchers at the University of Queensland will conduct an international trial to assess if the spare battery capacity in electric vehicles could be used to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy, support the electricity network, and potentially power homes in the future.

In a major milestone for New South Wales, green hydrogen is now being injected into the state’s gas network for the first time with energy infrastructure company Jemena confirming its $15 million Western Sydney Green Hydrogen Hub has started making the zero-emissions fuel available for home, business and transport use.

South Australia’s nascent green hydrogen industry has attracted financial support from the Japanese Government which has awarded funding to the Marubeni Corporation which is planning to export the zero-emissions fuel produced using large-scale wind and solar energy in the state to the Indo-Pacific region.

Australian property investor and developer Cbus Property has revealed plans to clad a $1 billion commercial office tower being developed in Melbourne’s CBD with a ‘solar skin’ capable of generating 20% of the project’s base building electricity requirements.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures’ Australian platform has shifted its attentions to across the ditch, teaming with one of New Zealand’s largest energy providers in a joint venture which will develop up to 500 MW of solar PV capacity over the next five years.

The companies that own and operate the Basslink undersea power cable linking Tasmania and Victoria have entered voluntary administration amid a legal dispute with the Tasmania government over an outage that occurred six years ago.

Western Australian miner IGO is building upon its renewable energy options at its Nova nickel operation after signing an agreement with Perth-based energy storage company VSUN Energy to trial a hybrid standalone power system backed by a vanadium redox flow battery.

Australia’s first coordinated renewable energy zone is to be built in the New South Wales central west with the state government revealing the Central-West Orana REZ, which will deliver at least 3 GW of renewable energy into the grid, has been formally declared.

Federal government plans to expand the mandate of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation so it can invest in carbon capture and storage technology have been criticised as “yet another attempt to prop up Australia’s thermal coal industry, at the expense of renewables”.