Australia’s first commercial installation of printed solar cells, made using specialised semiconducting inks and printed using a conventional reel-to-reel printer, has been installed on a factory roof in Newcastle.

Rumor has it industry lobbying has persuaded the government to agree to 300-500 MW of distributed PV in each of the populous nation’s 34 local government areas, with a reduction in “non-technical costs” making up for a lack of guaranteed payment.

UNSW’s ARC DECRA Fellow Sophie Lewis and research fellow Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick chart a decade-long failure of Australian emissions reductions policy as evidence of extreme weather events and climate change impacts mount.

An energy production and trading scheme designed for the Tonsley Innovation District in Adelaide will incorporate one of Australia’s largest rooftop solar arrays to provide energy to businesses and homes within the growing precinct.

In what analysts worldwide are sure to look back on as the last golden period for global solar – at least for the immediate future – China saw more impressive figures for PV manufacturing in the first half of the year. Then the government stepped in.

Local production of its Power Skid central inverter platform delivers a host of benefits when meeting surging demand claims SMA. Local jobs add icing to the cake, says SMA’s Bernhard Voll in an interview in advance of a webinar on the new product.

Italian renewable monitoring platform provider Elemize is looking to bring its battery controller unit Bamboo to the Australian market. Targeting aggregation uses such as in Virtual Power Plants (VPP), Elemize is aiming at Australia being the first market it expands into after its native Italy.

Greenko Energies will set up India’s largest Integrated Renewable Energy Project (IREP) in Andhra Pradesh at an investment of INR 150 billion (US$2.2 billion). Recently approved by the Andhra Pradesh government, the project will comprise 1,000 MW of solar energy, 550 MW of wind energy and 1,200 MW of standalone pumped storage capacities. It is expected to provide employment to 15,000 people during construction and 3,000 people after construction.

Independent PV analyst, Corinne Lin discusses the fallout of China’s recent solar PV policy decision, including decreasing utilization rates and serious oversupply; and a focus on equipment upgrades, particularly for PERC, SE, half cut and bifiacial technologies. The industry will bounce back in 2019, she concludes.

Heath Frewin, the Head of Distribution at Energy Networks Australia sets out the “growing ethical dilemma” brought on by rising rooftop solar adoption.