Fast increasing power prices in Western Australia are set to feed the already “buoyant” residential PV sector, leading suppliers are reporting. The WA government is winding back electricity subsidies in an attempt to repair the state’s budget.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is continuing to foster utility scale PV growth in Queensland, providing $55 million in non-recourse project finance to the Oakey 2 Solar Farm. Canadian Solar will supply modules for the project and will also serve as EPC.

Australians continue to see fostering solar PV, wind and other renewables as the leading environmental issue. And that a national renewable energy target is the best policy mechanism to do it.

The modern PV industry has lost one its pioneering researchers. The University of New South Wales’ Stuart Wenham died on Saturday December 23, after having being diagnosed with a malignant melanoma in September. He was 61 years old.

Looking back on an unprecedented year for Australia’s renewables sector, when it was never far from mainstream headlines, 2017 may very well be the watershed year for the industry. And it is the states, rather than the federal government, which have taken the lead.

South Australia’s water utility will install a trial floating PV array on its Happy Valley Reservoir. The 100 kW system will be installed in 2018 and is a part of the utility’s plans, announced today, to reduce its net electricity costs to zero by 2020.

The Australian Greens are continuing their advocacy for a RET extension and expansion beyond 2020, on the back of the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) finding that renewables are driving down electricity prices. In its latest report on electricity prices, AEMC has found that much of 2017’s 11% residential price increases will be “reversed” as around 4 GW of renewables come online – driven by the RET.

In what it claims is Australia’s largest single rootop PV array, Australia Post has added 2.1 MW of PV to its Sydney Parcel Facility in Chullora.

After agreeing to provide debt finance to two Wirsol projects with a combined capacity of 200 MW, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has achieved the milestone of having funded 1 GW of large scale solar projects. The two loans to Wirsol allow construction of the projects to get underway before PPAs have been signed.

Independent oil and gas producer Woodside will deploy a battery and microgrid solution on one of its offshore gas platforms. The system is planned to reduce the facility’s gas consumption for electricity supply and its O&M costs.