Residential PV

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.

Western Australia’s government has announced two units at Synergy’s Muja Power Station will be retired from October 2022. The state government said the coal-fired units were only being used about 35% of the time thanks largely to rooftop solar reducing demand on the grid.

The Smart Energy Council has announced plans for a second rally to warn against the current Solar Homes scheme’s damaging effect on Victoria’s solar industry. This time, the protest will target Premier Daniel Andrews’ office.

The program will test the potential of distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar systems, battery storage and controllable load devices, aggregated into virtual power plants (VPPs), to provide scalable energy and network services traditionally performed by large-scale, conventional electricity generators. With registration open, the Australian Energy Market Operator wants VPPs to register to accelerate the shared learning on how to safely and efficiently integrate, operate and regulate these emerging technologies into the National Electricity Market.

Even though it is winter, solar capacity is now sufficiently large that it drove renewable energy’s share of the electricity market up above 30% in the middle of the day for 20 out of 30 days of June, finds Green Energy Markets.

After it deployed a record $1.3 billion into the clean energy sector in a 12-month period, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation said it will sharpen its focus on energy storage and other technologies to support the stability of the national grid.

Metal wrap-through technology combined with PERC confers multiple benefits on Sunport Power’s new solar modules. Add the involvement of UNSW’s Professor Martin Green in the product development, Sunport’s 1.4 GW production capacity and a 30-year performmance warranty by insurer Lloyds… Two Australian wholesalers have started shipping.

A report published by New Zealand’s state-owned transmission grid operator Transpower finds the widespread uptake of distributed battery storage could play an important role in supporting the power system as rooftop PV and electric vehicles are increasingly adopted.