Residential PV

The Victorian Government has heeded solar industry and customer concerns and wrought substantial changes to the Solar Homes Rebate Program, including a significant increase in rebate allocations and a streamlining of the laborious online application portal.

Two reports have described how the world’s largest renewable energy market is moving towards maturity. According to the Brookings Institution, the Chinese clean energy market could become more open to Western investors and tech. A report by Fitch claims projects are moving back to inland provinces from coastal regions.

Byron Bay’s Smart Energy has expanded rapidly across Australia from its base in the Northern Rivers on the back of a high-quality workmanship and a business model that allows customers to pay for their solar with the savings it provides.

Following up suspicions raised by the state’s solar installer community, Solar Victoria launched an investigation into whether artificial intelligence (AI) had been deployed to exploit registrations for the rooftop PV subsidy. The investigation has concluded that there was no AI interference in the Solar Homes portal.

Ovida provides PPAs to businesses and multi-tenanted buildings, but the company is also working hard on a Community Energy Microgrid Hub and Victoria’s largest concentration of on-grid microgrids in the heart of Victorian coal country, the Latrobe Valley

Researchers have built a tool to use cheap satellite imagery – like Google Maps – to automatically create solar designs with a 91% accuracy rate.

A study by LEK Consulting puts the future economic value of “new mobility” options such as electric vehicles and autonomous taxis in the tens of billions of dollars. The benefits go beyond decarbonisation into social and healthcare realms — compelling reasons to accelerate change.

The impacts of the cap that Victoria’s Solar Homes program is having on local installers are becoming more pronounced, as some express fears that the system is being exploited by unscrupulous industry players. Solar Cutters says some installers are receiving “pitiful” numbers of installs under the scheme, leaving them “dumbfounded”.

The growing share of rooftop solar had a significant impact on Australia’s main grid in the latest quarter, both in terms of reducing operational demand and emissions intensity, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said. Looking ahead, AEMO is seeking to procure off-market emergency reserves to help protect the grid from potential summer blackouts the upcoming summer, as coal generator outages grow in frequency.

Chinese PV module maker Risen Energy has announced it has achieved the highest jump in solar module sales in the Australian market in a one-year period.