Highlights

Australia’s large-scale solar farms generated a near-record 1,463 GWh of clean energy during the month of January, just shy of the 1,509 GWh produced in December, according to the latest data from international consultancy firm Rystad Energy.

The prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has this year been awarded to the University of New South Wales’ Professor Martin Green, Dr Aihua Wang and Dr Jianhua Zhao, as well as the Australian National University’s Professor Andrew Blakers, for their research work and development of PERC solar technology.

Large-scale wind and solar farm investment commitments grew nearly 50% in 2022, according to new data published by the Clean Energy Regulator.

CleanPeak Energy, who have until now specialised in the C&I segment, have acquired the 13 MW Mugga Lane Solar Park in Canberra. CleanPeak reportedly bought the solar farm for between $30 million (USD 21 million) and $40 million, after it was placed into voluntary administration following a loan dispute.

Last year was a tricky one for solar, with each segment from residential to commercial to utility behaving quite differently. The industry trends have been laid out in Sunwiz’s latest Australian PV Report and pv magazine Australia takes a dive into what happened and what there is to learn.

Chinese manufacturer Longi has increased the product warranty for its Hi-MO 5m modules to 25 years in Australia and New Zealand. The company says the ten year boost comes “after identifying how important it has become for consumers to have full confidence and peace of mind at the time of choosing their solar system components.”

Renewable energy generation provided a record high proportion of Australia’s electricity mix in the final three months of 2022, supplying on average more than 40% of power in the nation’s main grid, eclipsing the previous record of 35.8% set in the same period the previous year.

The World Future Energy Summit showed that Middle Eastern solar markets are still driven by utility-scale PV, although the C&I sector shows signs of growth. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are the most promising markets for big solar projects, with huge pipelines under development, while Lebanon and Yemen show promise due to chronic energy shortages.

Queensland zinc-bromine flow battery maker, Redflow, has announced its batteries have successfully been integrated with Chinese brand Deye’s hybrid inverters. Redflow says the integration “provides a range of new capabilities previously unavailable to the Australian market.”

The independent review into Australia’s carbon credit scheme has concluded that the scheme is not fundamentally flawed, but could be improved by greater transparency and changes to its governance.