Installations

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has called for the establishment of a $2 billion (USD1.3 billion) national fund to retrofit and electrify low-income homes with solar, to reduce energy bills, minimise poverty, and make progress towards Australia’s emissions reduction targets.

Decades of mismanagement have eroded trust in South Africa’s state-owned energy utility, Eskom. Last year, households and businesses suffered daily blackouts of up to 10 hours, or even longer. Solar and battery energy storage are booming but a domestic PV manufacturing industry has yet to materialize.

While facilitating utility-scale solar farms co-existence with agricultural land near transmission networks is an ongoing challenge in Australia, in Southeast Asia similar problems is resulting in the growth of floating PV (FPV) installations.

The future is bright for community solar finds Arcadia, a utility data technology provider, in a new report. The report says the success of community solar is a result of US states strengthening support programs, federal legislation increasingly being implemented, and that billions of dollars are being invested in solar projects for all income levels.

Energy forecasting and managing company Proa is rolling out its technology at two Northern Territory (NT) defence facility solar farms, with positive implications for scheduling solar energy commitments with certainty.

The Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas sources 10 MW of off-site solar, as well as wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power, among other sustainability measures.

As Australia’s rooftop solar wracks up records, price cannibalisation has resulted in a “struggling” large scale market segment. Victoria University’s Energy Policy Centre head Bruce Mountain says that increasingly depressed wholesale electricity prices during the day is squeezing out big PV.

Following strong global solar installation figures in 2023, Alexa Capital co-founder and partner Gerard Reid sees enormous potential for a renewables revolution.

The NSW state government’s Rebate Swap for Solar program has attracted 2,700 households to the scheme, which it says will take $600 a year off energy bills. The energy, environment and climate change ministry announced the scheme’s progress this week.

While investigating on the effects of wildfire smoke on rooftop PV installations, University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers have found that solar arrays, due to their sensitivity to smoke, could serve as an early warning detection of wildfires by providing temporal and spatial information on the presence and approximate concentrations of smoke.