1.21 MW rooftop solar installation underway on New Zealand brewery
New Zealand-headquartered gentailer Meridian Energy is installing a 1.21 MW rooftop solar system on an Auckland brewery roof owned by global beverage company Lion, which will partly power the facility’s annual electricity needs.
Cloud electric vehicle-to-grid battery optimisation methods researched
Cloud energy storage has been investigated as an efficient optimisation method for vehicle-to-grid charging stations, where power between them could be exchanged without physical connections.
27 million solar panels needed for Victoria’s 2035 renewables targets
Victoria’s 2035 renewables target is forecast to require 27 million solar panels raising concerns over end-of-life management, with a government modelling forecast that tonnages of photovoltaic system e-waste will increase around 20% per annum over the next decade.
Battery subsidy schemes proposed to cut bills and boost manufacturing
Battery subsidies are absent from the 2025-26 Federal Budget, but industry organisations are committed to pushing government forward to support the rollout of household batteries backed by local manufacturing.
Energy bill relief better served by behind-the-meter solutions education
Energy retailers are called upon to educate housholds about the benefits of behind-the-meter energy solutions after the Federal Budget’s short-term energy bill relief falls short of savings already delivered to households through rooftop solar, electric vehicles (EVs), and automated orchestration.
Early engagement with stakeholders key to enhance acceptance of agrivoltaics
An new report on agrivoltaic systems highlights early communications with local stakeholders goes a long way to enhance the societal acceptance of agrivoltaic projects, predicted to play roles in food production resilience and climate change mitigation.
Solar’s exponential growth disrupts global energy markets in 2024
Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) says global energy markets are being reshaped by solar’s disruption, which is happening at speed, turbocharged by battery energy storage system firming.
New passive solar module cooling tech based on lightweight hydrogel
Researchers at Thailand’s Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology demonstrated a novel hydrogel that has high cooling effect on silicon PV panels.
IKEA Australia Sydney warehouse furnished with hybrid solar and battery system
IKEA Australia has partnered with Smart Commercial Solar to install a $2.9 million, 2,034 kW rooftop solar and battery energy storage system on a western Sydney distribution centre.
NT solar centre data feeds ultra-short-term PV forecasting method
Scientists utilising data gathered at the Northern Territory’s Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre have created a novel probabilistic model for five-minutes ahead PV power forecasting. The method combines a convolutional neural network with bidirectional long short-term memory, attention mechanism, and natural gradient boosting.
