Installations

The Victorian government on Tuesday announced a $797 million energy efficiency package to accelerate the rollout of rooftop solar and batteries around the state. The package will also deliver home energy upgrades to over 250,0000 households, set new home and rental energy standards, and offer immediate bill relief to people facing hardship during the pandemic.

Following on from Social Energy’s launch in Australia late last year, the UK company has teamed up with SolaX to offer a rather appetising feed-in-tariff deal to go with a combined solar and energy storage system.

Steel giant BlueScope is backing the NSW Government’s ambitious renewable infrastructure plan through a $20 million investment into the development of a Renewable Manufacturing Zone at its Port Kembla site in the Illawarra. The investment seeks to encourage innovation in the renewable sector and work towards the Government’s goal of constructing the state’s Renewable Energy Zones with local materials.

Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has given its partnership to Hydrogen Renewables Australia as it looks to develop the 5,000 Mw Murchison Renewable Hydrogen Project near Kalbarri in Western Australia. The project looks to utilise Australia’s best wind and solar resources to produce hydrogen fuel for export to nations such as Japan and Korea.

Egg production is an extremely efficient industry, thanks to the chicken, but electricity consumption remains a hurdle to industry sustainability. The Australian Eggs new Solar Calculator cracks the code on optimal system size, savings and CO2 abatement for small-to-medium-sized egg farms.

Spanish developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) has reaffirmed its presence in the Australian renewable energy marketplace by adding the 115 MW Metz Solar Farm to its solar portfolio.

As Victorians fly out of lockdown and into the thick of summer the solar industry is preparing for the release of pent-up demand for solar which was hungered for during lockdown but went unsatisfied. pv magazine Australia sat down with AC Solar Warehouse’s Grant Behrendorff to gauge the backlog of installations and talk shop in the approach to a bumper summer.

Australia’s largest retailer, the Woolworths Group, will power all of its operations with renewable energy by 2025 as part of a new and ambitious sustainability pledge.

Iron ore mining giant Fortescue Metals Group has revealed ambitious plans to build one of the biggest renewable energy portfolios in the world, delivering more than 235 GW of renewable capacity, or five times the current capacity of Australia’s National Energy Market.

Energy management software company SwitchDin has urged operators in the Australian renewable energy market to work collaboratively as the decentralised generation model becomes increasingly dominant.