Installations

United Kingdom-based Above’s founder and CEO Will Hitchcock sits down with pv magazine to discuss the solar industry’s growing demand for drone-based aerial inspection and data analysis, the game changing utility of digital twins, and what the future holds for autonomous drone programs.

The investment platforms from Octopus Investments Australia are set to acquire three new projects in the coming months in Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales. Launched in 2022, the OREO and OASIS platforms “allow wholesale investors and mums and dads to invest alongside big institutional investors and get access to big projects in Australia,” Managing Director Sam Reynolds told pv magazine Australia.

Raptor Maps analysed 24.5 GW of large-scale solar assets and determined that power losses due to equipment anomalies nearly doubled from 1.61% in 2019 to 3.13% in 2022. At the module level, cell and diode anomalies were the most common issues, it said.

Executives from Gentari, the clean energy subsidiary of Malaysia’s state-owned oil company Petronas, and Japan’s biggest steelmaker, Nippon Steel, are eying Australia for future investments in renewables projects and green-steel manufacturing.

Australia’s utility-scale solar sector had its third highest month on record in February, generating 1,463 GWh. New South Wales was the country’s top generator, showing the state’s colossal coal turnaround is well underway.

The Queensland government will acquire the $5 billion (USD 3.37 billion) CopperString transmission line project which is set to unlock 6 GW of renewable energy resources and connect Queensland’s North West Minerals Province to Australia’s national grid. The shovel-ready project, many years in the making, is hailed as the biggest expansion to Australia’s energy grid in decades.

The Queensland government will team with the Smart Energy Council to develop an industry-led solar panel recycling scheme and investigate a ban on the dumping of end-of-life panels as it prepares for a surge in the number of decommissioned PV modules coming off rooftops.

Metal recycling company Sims plans to offload its 50% stake in Queensland-headquartered renewable energy group LMS Energy which owns and operates six solar plants and 36 waste-to-energy facilities at landfill sites throughout Australia.

The remote town of William Creek in outback South Australia is now being powered entirely by solar backed by a battery energy storage system after the switch was flicked on a 200 kW PV array that eliminates the need for diesel generation.

The Australian renewables and energy solutions arm of global energy Shell is finalising the installation of a solar-powered virtual power plant featuring battery energy storage systems deployed across 16 New South Wales government buildings.