Australia’s peak union body has called for the federal government to establish a national energy transition authority to help manage the shift from coal to a grid dominated by renewables.

The Australian government will seek to introduce vehicle fuel efficiency standards to help get more electric vehicles into the domestic market and improve affordability of as part of a push to encourage more people to take up the low-emissions cars.

Australian module manufacturer Tindo Solar has unveiled a new solar panel based on M10 wafers for residential and business rooftop systems. The new addition to the company’s Karra range has a rated power of 410 W at 20.6% module efficiency and 23.1% cell efficiency.

The Australian arm of Philippines-based energy company AC Energy has secured a $100 million loan facility which will be used to accelerate the development of clean energy projects in Australia with the company seeking to grow its renewables capacity to 20 GW by 2030.

The Australian Energy Regulator has approved more than $300 million of funding to support early works on the HumeLink project which is expected to boost overall transmission capacity in New South Wales, paving the way for gigawatts of new wind, solar PV and storage projects.

In just eight years time, the Labor government wants Australia to be 82% powered by renewable energy. That means a rapid, historic shift, given only 24% of our power was supplied by renewables as of last year.

Thailand’s Ratch Group has boosted its renewable energy ambitions in Australia and south-east Asia with the purchase of Singapore-based renewable energy company Nexif Energy’s pipeline of nearly 2.7 GW of wind, solar and storage assets in a deal valued at more than $870 million ($US605 million).

Sydney-based lithium-ion battery specialist Magnis Energy Technologies has begun commercial production of full-sized cells at its manufacturing plant in the United States with plans to increase production to 38 GWh of battery cell capacity per year by the end of the decade.

French renewables giant Total Eren continues to advance its green hydrogen ambitions in Australia, teaming with the Northern Territory government to develop a massive renewable hydrogen production facility powered by more than 2 GW of solar PV generation in the far north.

Victoria’s coal-fired power plants would be progressively shut down by the end of the decade under a climate bill to be introduced to state parliament this week.