Victoria’s Hobson Bay City Council has announced a range of initiatives to move towards its carbon neutrality goals, including a renewable energy power purchase agreement, deployment of EV infrastructure and rooftop solar.

Through subsidiary, Eni Australia, the Italian oil major has completed the acquisition of two 12.5 MW construction-ready solar project in the Northern Territory.

Plans to develop an 18 GWh lithium-ion battery factory in northern Queensland have reached an important milestone with the project feasibility study submitted to the Queensland government.

Today’s project milestone saw the disconnection of the properties from overhead lines and will enable 64 kilometres of poles and wires to be replaced by off-grid solar+battery solutions.

Among 31 dispatchable electricity projects unveiled this week under the NSW Emerging Energy Program, utility-scale battery storage accounted for a bulk of proposals. Four big batteries have been awarded funds for pre-investment studies, and another ten have been shortlisted for capital funding.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union is recommending an overhaul of policies to promote manufacturing in regional Australia along with a major push to create new jobs in a range of industries, including lithium batteries, green hydrogen and renewables.

Today, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has switched to 100% renewable electricity as it started purchasing clean power from the last stage of South Australia’s Hornsdale Wind Farm.

When Sony first commercially introduced lithium-ion batteries in 1991, the industry recognized their potential to revolutionize portable electronics. Ever since, there have been countless efforts to improve the technology, with many researchers focusing on energy density and longevity, in line with demand from emerging applications such as electric vehicles (EVs) and on-grid energy storage. Julian Jansen and Youmin Rong of IHS Markit discuss the effect of safety concerns on this rapidly growing global market.

As part of a broader push to develop a domestic hydrogen industry, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing $2.9 million for two studies into using solar and wind-powered hydrogen for ammonia. Both project are located in Queensland and presently use natural gas as feedstock.

The Sydney-based developer has raised funding for the development of a 30 MW CSP project which will be collocated with a 20 MW PV plant. The company’s innovative technology, which uses sodium as a heat transfer fluid to capture concentrated solar energy that can then be stored and used on-demand on the utility-scale, has earned Vast Solar an international award for dispatchable renewable energy technology.