Highlights

The City of Sydney has unveiled the biggest standalone renewables deal for an Australian council. Valued at over $60 million, the plan will see the City meet its electricity needs using only wind and solar.

With UK success under its belt, Social Energy is set to make Australia’s vast rooftop PV resource pay back more to households and deliver for the grid — think an energy-storage system that uses AI to manage, distribute and trade energy generated by aggregated home solar.

On the back of a landmark agreement with Alinta Energy, Fortescue Metals will use solar power for up to 100% of its daytime energy needs at the Chichester Hub iron ore operation in the Pilbara region.

Former Suntech President Shi Zhengrong says that China’s “solar cluster” has worked in an organized way to achieve both scale and product quality and performance. Known widely as Dr Shi, the true solar pioneer is attending next week’s All Energy Australia event, and will be speaking at pv magazine’s Quality Roundtable.

Over the last decade, materials giant DuPont has surveyed more than 2 GW of PV installations and analyzed a range of failure types and their causes. Hong-Jie Hu, DuPont’s solar technical and development lead in China, says that the company is looking for Australian partners for its Global Field Survey program – with a particular interest in hot and humid and desert environments.

Researchers from Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials claim to have solved the biggest problem that’s preventing photovoltaic cells from being recycled.

A global supplier of electrical cabling for utility scale PV projects has warned that some Australian EPCs are not adopting international solar-industry norms on projects, potentially leading to “massive risk.” Swiss supplier Leoni reports that considering the vast scale of some solar projects in Australia that potential failures could be particularly costly.

ARENA’s round of funding for renewable-energy forecasting technologies, initiated in early 2018, is coming to fruition, with wide-ranging benefits for solar farm earnings and the stability of a low- to no-carbon NEM. 

With sun the common component of solar energy production and agriculture, a new company in northern NSW is set to combine the benefits of sowing PV and forage crops in the same soil.

Public policy think-tank Grattan Institute has released a new report on energy policy, or lack thereof. The report, entitled Power Play: How governments can better direct Australia’s electricity market, makes a comprehensive overview of the current state of affairs and makes concerted recommendations.