Installations

Thirteen of Victoria’s water corporations have partnered to buy clean energy from the Kiamal Solar Farm in north-west Victoria, at a much cheaper rate than would be possible individually.

With the appointment of UGL, publicly-listed developer Genex Power has finalized a project delivery team for the 50 MW Jemalong Solar Farm.

Construction has been launched on the 34.2 MW Cohuna Solar Farm, one of the three winning solar projects in the first Victorian renewable energy auction.

Australia’s first Solar Asset Management conference to be held June 26-27 in Sydney recognises a new phase for the country’s large-scale solar sector, as well as the urgent need to drive efficiency from projects, both in the planning and the 25- to 35-year O&M life stages of each project.

Following Carnegie Clean Energy’s voluntary administration, the administrators have revealed the bids its solar microgrid arm managed to attract. Meanwhile, a plan to restructure the company’s core wave power business has been approved by creditors, along with a decision to liquidate the EMC business.

Works have been launched on the 64 MW solar farm is the Darling Downs region. Once completed, the project could make the University of Queensland the world’s first university to offset 100% of its electricity needs from its own renewable energy asset.

Rooftop solar remained the biggest employer in the Australian renewable energy sector last financial year, but it was large-scale solar PV that stole the limelight as it emerged as the second largest contributor of direct full-time jobs.

The world had more than half a terawatt of PV generation capacity at the end of last year as emerging solar markets picked up the slack caused by Beijing’s subsidy about-turn to the tune of a 20% rise in installations outside China.

In a major shift towards owning renewable energy generation assets, electricity network infrastructure owner Spark Infrastructure has fully acquired the 120 MW Bomen Solar Farm in NSW. The project has inked a power purchase agreement with Westpac, which marks a big step towards its goal of sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

Solar could meet approximately 68% of global energy demand with other renewables making up the rest, according to a new report. A 100% renewable energy system could also create 22 million solar jobs by 2050, the study claims. Keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees C, though, would require FITs for projects up to 40 MW in capacity, auctions for bigger systems, removing fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies and providing more education and R&D and less red tape.