The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has called for the establishment of a $2 billion (USD1.3 billion) national fund to retrofit and electrify low-income homes with solar, to reduce energy bills, minimise poverty, and make progress towards Australia’s emissions reduction targets.

Li-S Energy has announced the commissioning of manufacturing equipment in its Phase 3, 2 MWh production facility at Geelong, allowing the company to scale up manufacturing of their lithium sulfur and lithium metal batteries.

While facilitating utility-scale solar farms co-existence with agricultural land near transmission networks is an ongoing challenge in Australia, in Southeast Asia similar problems is resulting in the growth of floating PV (FPV) installations.

Energy forecasting and managing company Proa is rolling out its technology at two Northern Territory (NT) defence facility solar farms, with positive implications for scheduling solar energy commitments with certainty.

Akaysha Energy has received planning approval for its proposed 100 MW/200 MWh Palmerston battery energy storage system (BESS) in Tasmania. The battery is located close to the TasRex Northern Midlands solar farm development.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is one of five institutions confirmed to back Neoen’s South Australian 238.5 MW / 477 MWh Blyth Battery, further securing its 70 MW green power contract with BHP to supply the Olympic Dam mine site.

The NSW state government’s Rebate Swap for Solar program has attracted 2,700 households to the scheme, which it says will take $600 a year off energy bills. The energy, environment and climate change ministry announced the scheme’s progress this week.

The Silicon to Solar (Roadmap) study has found Australian PV supply chain manufacturing is viable and calls for immediate action to establish it as a strategic priority industry and set up a solar manufacturing taskforce.

Renewable energy supporters and unions were activated last weekend to attend simultaneous family events in Wollongong and Newcastle, NSW, Gippsland and Portland, Victoria, and Gladstone, Queensland in support of solar, wind, and large scale energy storage. The events stood in contrast to growing community resistance to renewables and electricity transmission projects.

Australia’s energy transition risks falling behind with a new report showing that the time required to plan, build and commission a large-scale solar farm is almost four years with the final stage of the process having blown out to six months or more.