Western Australia is on track to become home to the nation’s first clean energy training centre of excellence with the state and federal governments investing $70.5 million over five years to address labour shortages in Australia’s renewable energy transition.

Chinese manufacturer Longi says it is not shutting down its factory in Malaysia, nor it is idling its production lines in Vietnam, but it acknowledges that it is implementing production adjustments at these facilities.

The decarbonisation of mining operations continues to find support with a new report showing that an all-electric underground fleet for the Cosmos nickel project in Western Australia would be technically feasible and cost competitive with the existing all-diesel operating fleet that was planned.

Queensland businesses can now apply for up to $10 million funding for large-scale recycling projects that tackle commercial and industrial waste and provide recovery solutions for renewable energy technologies, including end-of-life solar panels and batteries.

Anywhere Solar says its new trackers have a module area of 75 m2 and can host PV systems up to 19 kW in size. When deployed horizontally, the systems allow vehicles up to 4.3 meters high to pass underneath.

Haven’t we been here before? The polysilicon industry is shifting from shortage to oversupply but a few things are different from market cycles of the past, as Bernreuter Research founder Johannes Bernreuter explains.

Perovskites remain a great hope for the future of the solar industry, once the possibilities of tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) and heterojunction PV have been exhausted. A look at the latest perovskite research shows that industry optimism is built on a strong foundation.

With solar module oversupply triggering a price freefall in 2023 and no recovery in sight, market consolidation, inventory pile-up, technology shifts, and challenges to reshoring PV manufacturing are set to affect all levels of the solar supply chain.

Economic cooperation between India and Australia may open doors for investment in clean energy technology but challenges still abound in a competitive global market. Vibhuti Garg and Shantanu Srivastava, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, discuss the role that public funding and resource pooling could play in supporting manufacturing ambitions.

Also on the rise: Global solar cell and module manufacturing capacity grew by about 550 GW in 2023; Malaysia launches incentive scheme for residential solar; new solar module recycling process; and more.