Installations

Penfolds owner Treasure Wine Estates will install more than 9,500 solar panels across its Barossa and Karadoc wineries as the company seeks to become 100% renewable by 2024. To achieve that goal the company says it is preparing to install 29,000 solar panels across its vineyards worldwide, while also purchasing offsite renewables.

About 1 million New South Wales households will be able to apply for an upfront payment of almost $3,000 to put towards a solar system or energy-saving upgrades to home appliances as part of a new state government program designed to reduce energy bills as power prices soar.

The International Renewable Energy Agency’s latest annual report on the progress towards the United Nation’s sustainable development goal seven estimates 670 million people will still lack electricity in 2030, and more than 2 billion will be reliant on unhealthy, polluting cooking methods.

Melbourne’s City of Boroondara council has ordered a homeowner to remove rooftop solar panels on a street-facing facade due to the building’s position in a heritage overlay. In 2021 the City of Boroondara declared a climate emergency and called for a tripling of rooftop solar in the municipality. The homeowner described the decision as “ridiculous.”

Singapore-headquartered solar manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies, which sells in Australia under the SunPower Maxeon brand, announced in May that it was launching its new holistic energy management system in Australia in the third quarter of 2022. pv magazine Australia sat down with Maxeon Solar Technologies’ chief revenue officer Mark Babcock in Munich, Germany, at Intersolar 2022.

With architects and construction companies across the world showing an increasing interest in building integrated PV, one Australian company has outlined plans to clad an eight-storey building being constructed in West Melbourne with a “solar skin” that will generate almost all of the building’s base power.

New South Wales has topped the charts for large-scale renewable energy generation in May but Queensland has dominated the solar stakes with the top six utility PV assets for the month all located in the sunshine state.

Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has marked a major milestone in its rooftop solar program with a store in the Canberra suburb of Conder becoming the retailer’s 150th outlet to be fitted with solar PV panels.

Brisbane-based Line Hydrogen is seeking $2 million in crowdfunding investment from Australians who want to contribute to the green energy revolution at the ground level by getting its Tasmanian and Queensland green hydrogen projects off the ground.

India’s rooftop solar installations increased by 34% year on year in the January-March period, despite a 17% increase in system costs.