Australia and India helped make up for Chinese solar retreat last year
The world had more than half a terawatt of PV generation capacity at the end of last year as emerging solar markets picked up the slack caused by Beijing’s subsidy about-turn to the tune of a 20% rise in installations outside China.
World-first relocatable solar pods power up commercial rooftops
Solpod today launches a potential game changer in commercial solar PV. Substantially funded by ARENA, supported by energy retailer, ERM Power, and trialling across 25 shopping centres and NSW Government sites, this innovation has the legs to go global.
Woolworths becomes world’s first retailer to issue green bonds
The Australian supermarket giant is issuing green bonds to fund the development of low-carbon supermarkets and the installation of solar at its stores and distribution centres.
Flinders University to roll out more solar on rooftops, shelters and walkways
Building on its existing PV fleet, South Australia’s Flinders University has announced a fresh investment of $1.45 million to source one-third of its electricity needs from solar.
AEMO’s VPP integration trial, decentralized energy exchange secure funding
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will underpin two innovative distributed energy projects – a trial to integrate a virtual power plant into the National Energy Market and a digital marketplace for grid services provided by rooftop solar arrays, batteries and EVs owned by Australian homes and businesses.
2018 smashed renewables records across the board, CEC finds
A new report from the Clean Energy Council confirms 2018 shattered all records in terms of investment in renewables and capacity additions. The CEC finds that more than 2.3 GW of new renewable energy projects were completed in 2018. Both large-scale and rooftop solar experienced their best ever year.
Bank Australia joins RE100, calls on businesses to lead shift to renewables
Bank of Australia has committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2020. It has become the second major Australian business to sign up to the global initiative RE100 following in the footsteps of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Global cumulative PV capacity tops 480 GW, IRENA says
New global PV additions reached 94.2 GW in 2018, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Asia is the region with the largest share of cumulative PV capacity, with around 274.6 GW, followed by Europe and North America with 119.3 GW and 55.3 GW, respectively.
Bifacial solar panels enter the commercial shopping basket
One of the two largest managers of Australian retail property, Vicinity Centres, has invested $73 million in a solar program set to provide 31 MW of clean energy to 22 shopping centres and their retailers by end 2019. An early-stage trial of Trina bifacial panels will see Vicinity increase its solar yield mid-rollout.
Solar supplies more power than brown coal or gas
Solar has grown so much that its output exceeded brown coal and gas over the summer months, between 9am to 5pm. New analysis by Green Energy Markets shows that across the whole of summer, renewable energy produced 128% more megawatt-hours of electricity than gas and 23% more than brown coal.
