Energy Storage

The Andrews Labor government is investing $2 million to boost the development of clean hydrogen energy technologies, and $1.1 million to support renewable energy projects in local communities across Victoria.

In what is being billed as Australia’s first off-grid, 100% renewable energy project in the oil and gas sector, Santos will power 56 crude oil pumps into solar and battery storage. The project has won a grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

The New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment has given the green light to a massive solar farm coupled with a utility-scale energy storage facility. The project proposed by Edify Energy is valued at $407 million.

The New South Wales government has launched its ambitious pumped hydro roadmap designed to back the rising level of wind and solar in the energy mix. Meanwhile, the board of government-owned energy provider Snowy Hydro has given the green light to its landmark $4 billion pumped hydro expansion project, Snowy 2.0.

A new three-phase residential inverter and battery solution will be introduced to the Australian market in the new year. Fronius and BYD underlined their collaborative agreement when representatives of the two companies met “recently” in Austria. Fronius believes the solution is the first of its kind to provide “this type of emergency power supply.”

The system turns light of white-glowing molten silicon into electricity using specialized PV cells. The researchers claim that the concept could store electricity at around half the costs of pumped hydro. A single system comprising two ten meter tanks could power 100,000 households.

Hydrogen holds promise for harnessing renewables to produce clean fuel for transport, grow a green energy-export industry, and overcome seasonal intermittency challenges in the grid. On the road to viable hydrogen production every cost-efficiency measure counts.

While little action is seen on the federal level, energy storage is increasingly coming to the fore as part of state and territory energy policies. With a rising number of residential battery subsidy schemes taking shape in Australia, funding appears to be slowly moving away from solar to energy storage. Such initiatives are poised to not only reshape the battery storage market, but also have a major impact on the grid, making it more reliable, responsive, and flexible.

The Canadian battery manufacturer says its order book has crossed the $1.5 million mark in less than two weeks after joining the South Australian Home Battery Scheme.

After months of preliminary work, the time has come: With its PV+home storage network, sonnen GmbH has received prequalification from TenneT to participate in Germany’s primary control energy market. While it is currently allowed to deliver 1 MW, the goal is to supply 100 MW.