Commercial & Industrial PV

By scanning millions of iterations, pvDesign finds the best plant configuration and automatically generates over 300 pages of detailed documentation in seconds. The Spanish firm has just landed its first Australian client.

As utilities, networks and governments get their distributed-resource ducks in a row, the time is ripe for VPPs and microgrids to play a more powerful role in Australia’s energy system. The latest? SwitchDin, a DER innovator with globally acknowledged capabilities has attracted investment from Q Cells a PV manufacturer with chops and channels.

Welcome to the rarest kind of pleasure, a sustainable one. Australian designer Chuck Anderson’s Lilypad is a 100% solar powered villa floating off Palm Beach in Sydney’s north.

A new report from the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) shows that the renewable energy sector in Australia has exhibited resilience with 1.3 GW of new installed capacity despite the economic challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. While rooftop PV continued to thrive in the first three months of this year, the construction of large-scale projects was generally on track with minimal delays.

The levelized cost of energy generated by large scale solar plants is around $0.068/kWh, compared to $0.378 ten years ago and the price fell 13.1% between 2018 and last year alone, according to figures released by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Photon Energy Australia has been busier than a face-mask factory lately, and shows no signs of stopping after winning a tender for a 3 MWp hybrid solar power plant from North East Water to help power the Wodonga Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The continuing dominance of the small-scale solar sector and the great potential for regional and rural jobs are just some of the findings in the Clean Energy Council’s “Clean Energy At Work”, a first-of-its-kind extensive report into the current renewable energy workforce and its potential over the next 10-15 years.

Australia’s rooftop PV fleet continues to grow in the face of uncertainty surrounding the outbreak of the pandemic, posting another big month above 200 MW. Mega-household solar systems are growing in popularity, but retailers and installers can see the storm clouds gathering.

The International Energy Agency has acknowledged dramatic falls in energy investment caused by the Covid-19 crisis but said renewables, including PV, offered an attractive proposition to investors as the dust settled, given their enticing economics and short turnaround times.

In 2019, renewables continued to undermine the dominance of coal on the Australian grid and surged on the back of a massive 46% year-on-year jump in solar power, according to the latest data from the federal Energy Department.