Installations

Sun Cable, which plans to build a 20 GW solar farm in the Northern Territory and export solar-generated electricity to Singapore via a 4,300-kilometre high-voltage undersea cable system, has announced plans to manufacture the power cables itself at a “multi-billion facility” in Tasmania.

Developed by scientists in Egypt, trhe Green Energy Solutions software allows users to assess the tradeoffs between the PV system reliability and its costs. Compared to PVsyst, it has an error margin of up to 9%.

The PV industry in Southeast Asia has come a long way since guest author Ragna Schmidt-Haupt, partner at Everoze, reported on solar financing innovation in the region more than a decade ago. In this article, she outlines five factors for success, the newest of which has the potential to become a game changer, and not only in Southeast Asia.

Fledgling renewables developer Larrakia Energy has reached an agreement with Australian resources company Tivan Limited to supply up to 10% of the output from a planned 300 MW solar farm being developed in the Northern Territory.

International metals group Korea Zinc’s Australian subsidiary Ark Energy has commenced construction of stage one of its first green hydrogen project that is to include a 1 MW electrolyser powered by the existing 124 MW Sun Metals Solar Farm in north Queensland.

LAVO, which entered the market with its hydrogen battery in 2021, has soft launched a new Energy-as-a-Service model. Partnering with Yingli Solar, LAVO says it can install and maintain solar, battery and EV charging systems at no upfront cost to Australian households, who will then pay off the systems via a 10-year subscription.

The Brookfield-led consortium looking to acquire Origin Energy has come back with a “best and final” bid that values the company at approximately $20 billion (USD 12.85 billion). The offer comes just days after the energy utility’s largest shareholder rejected the previous bid.

Chinese solar panel manufacturer AIKO unveiled its solar cell technology at Melbourne’s All-Energy event last week ahead of an impending entry into the Australian market.

One of Australia’s “big four” banks, the Commonwealth Bank, will begin offering interest-free finance up to $30,000 to install rooftop solar and home batteries with select merchants. The program will also allow customers to split repayments into instalments over one to five years.

Ground-mounted PV is increasingly being investigated not only as a renewable generator, but as shelter for crops and creatures under fire from climate change. Last week’s All Energy conference handed the mike to some pioneers in the field.