Highlights

Analyzing its fleet of solar sites, Solar Analytics has found that energy consumption in households due to Covid-19 confinement is up only slightly, if at all. While this is good news, the great news is that the onsite consumption of free solar power in these households is up significantly.

The Covid-19 pandemic will create a “perfect storm” for the wholesale electricity market as lower demand comes together with lower gas prices and large-scale solar and wind being commissioned to depress power prices, finds a report by Melbourne-based consultancy RepuTex.

The pandemic will postpone or cancel the financial close of some 3 GW of solar and wind in Australia, according to Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy, as the falling Australian dollar renders projects uneconomical. The biggest loser among the states will be New South Wales.

The Sustainable Australia Fund is launching special financing terms for the solar industry to mediate the impact of Covid-19. The terms seek to put immediate cash savings in the hands of businesses.

Australia’s energy regulators say their COVID-19 power plan released last week is designed to ease regulatory pressure on the industry and strike a balance on reforms and changes: some must continue at pace while others will be slowed or deferred.

The Dubai-headquartered Ecolog has inked a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Organic Electronics at the University of Newcastle to commercialize its low-cost, lightweight and portable solar energy technology.

Australia’s previously booming rooftop PV market segment is likely to see a steep decline in the face of Covid-19 related shutdowns and uncertainty. An industry survey has revealed that around 50% or survey respondents have seen customer enquiries decline by between 25-50%, with a further 20% reporting that new leads have dried up completely.

With 4.4 GW of new renewable energy capacity installed and almost a quarter of Australia’s electricity supply now coming from renewable energy sources, 2019 was another year of extraordinary growth, according to the latest edition of the Clean Energy Australia report. As rooftop solar continued its record-breaking streak, big PV made up more than two-thirds of Australia’s large-scale renewable energy capacity installed last year. Meanwhile, the battery storage sector started to gain momentum.

French renewable energy developer Neoen is looking to develop a massive battery near Geelong that will dwarf its largest project to date – South Australia’s 100MW/129MWh Tesla big battery.

Good news story: After more than six months of distress and compromise in the sunny but grid-challenged West Murray region of Australia, German solar equipment manufacturer SMA has developed an inverter-based solution that allows solar farms to play in harmony, and hopefully enables a long pipeline of renewable plant to carry on connecting until the transmission cavalry arrives.