Installations

A remote high school in Papua New Guinea has installed a solar powered mini-grid to classrooms and schoolground infrastructure such as a solar water pump and solar powered irrigation system, with the support of an Australian government off-grid renewable energy in the Pacific program.

The March 2025 Solar Choice Price Index shows solar panel prices per watt nationwide, except in Tasmania, continue to follow a trend since December 2020 of remaining below the $1 mark, and currently sit at $0.90 per watt.

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.

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.

New South Wales distribution network operator Endeavour Energy will install four community batteries on council land in the Wollongong region, with a further 13 suitable sites identified across the Illawarra.

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.

United Kingdom-based manufacturer Viridian Solar says the new modules have a rated power output of 445 W and can reportedly guarantee a power yield of 95% after 10 years.

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.

Sungrow Power Australia is addressing vegetation management issues, which prompted the closure of five of its solar farms in Victoria, following an inspection blitz of 18 solar farms conducted by Energy Safe Victoria.

Renewables developer Lightsource BP is pushing ahead with the construction of the 450 MW Goulburn River Solar Farm in the New South Wales Upper Hunter region after striking a long-term offtake agreement with the operators of one of Australia’s major coal export terminals.