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.
Global solar installations could reach 1 TW next year
BloombergNEF reports the world installed nearly 600 GW of solar power in 2024, closely aligning with projections that annual global solar installations will surpass 1 TW within the next few years. Although projections for 2025 currently fall short of that pace, early forecasts often underestimate actual deployment.
Aotearoa New Zealand’s solar generation reaches all time high
New Zealand’s Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko has reported the country’s solar generation reached an all-time high in March of 128 MW but say that’s likely to be surpassed when three new large-scale farms come online during 2025.
Commercial segment surges as residential rooftop backs off
Australia’s solar rollout continues to reach new heights with a combined total of 4.7 GW of small- and large-scale PV installed across the country in 2024 but shifts in the rooftop market suggests diversification of services will be key for the nation’s installer community going forward.
