Under the Electricity Strategy released on Friday, the NSW Government has unveiled a plan to deliver Australia’s first coordinated Renewable Energy Zone in the Central-West, seeking to support the new generation needed to get energy bills down. The administration has also pledged to give NSW one of the world’s highest reliability targets to cope with the changing electricity mix and unexpected generator outages.

In late September, Western Australia’s government-owned electric utility registered an approximate AUD 657 million ($442.8 million) loss – much of it attributed to asset and contract writedowns. However, the utility was quick to blame rooftop PV for eating into its revenues, while fixed costs remained unchanged or increased. Revenues for the utility were down 4.7% for the year, to AUD 2.8 billion.

The renewables investment arm of Octopus Group is seeking to raise up to £250 million ($475 million) through a major initial public offering for investment in onshore wind and solar assets in Europe and Australia. It aims to invest in already operating, in construction and construction-ready assets.

The Sydney-based developer has received credit approval to fund two of its solar projects. The announcement comes only days after Genex resumed trading on the Australian stock exchange in the wake of the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund’s decision to extend offer of funding for the 250 MW Kidston pumped storage hydro project.

The California-based energy technology company has integrated with GreenSync’s Decentralized Energy Exchange (deX), making it possible for its customers to get more value out of their distributed energy assets and help the grid manage the challenges associated with the rapid penetration of intermittent renewables.

Distributed energy producer EDL has officially opened a 23 MW power station that integrates solar with gas and diesel generation to power Gold Fields’ Agnew Gold Mine in Western Australia. The project is part of an innovative hybrid microgrid, which will later add a wind array and battery storage.

Two of Australia’s richest people, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, have jointly invested “tens of millions of dollars” in the ambitious Sun Cable projects, which would export solar energy from the Outback to power Singapore. The capital raising will enable developers Sun Cable to pay for development work for the undersea power link.

Over the last two years, corporate renewable power purchase agreements have become a major force in Australia’s large-scale renewable energy market. In hard figures, 70 leading Australian organizations have made the switch to renewable energy and procured nearly 2.3 GW of mostly solar and wind electricity and supported 5.2 GW of projects, finds the Business Renewables Centre of Australia.

Researchers from the University of Wollongong have manufactured a nanomaterial that acts as a superior cathode for room-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries, making them a more attractive proposition for large-scale energy storage.

From an energy-hungry importer to a frontrunner in the decarbonization race, South Australia has set the bar high for how to efficiently transition to a low-emissions grid dominated by renewables. With wind and solar already supplying more than a half of its electricity, the state’s energy transition shows no sign of letting up. In fact, South Australia is gearing up to accelerate the pace of its clean energy transition and expand its big PV fleet as it moves toward its 2030 target of “net” 100% renewables.