Residential PV

Western Australia has been offered a glimpse of its energy future with the $35 million Project Symphony aggregating its first package of residentially generated energy and successfully participating in a simulated two-way Wholesale Electricity Market.

Some believe Australia has begun to tip over the “solar cliff,” reaching penetrations that are becoming disruptive to the balance of the grid and to the business models of solar companies themselves. Following notable exits from the market, alarm bells are ringing for solar companies to offer more than just solar installations, writes pv magazine’s Bella Peacock.

Singapore-headquartered solar manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies has declared it is moving “beyond the panel”, teaming with multinational battery manufacturer AlphaESS to develop integrated solar and energy storage solutions for the residential sector.

As part of the Smart Energy Conference held in Sydney last week, the Smart Energy Council’s Scott Hamilton ran a session on Australia’s hypothetical energy landscape in 2030. This is how panelists Simon Holmes á Court, Jane Caro, Richard Denniss, Karrina Nolan and Professor Iain MacGill think we’ll be living at the decade’s close.

A plan to “rewire” one of Australia’s largest cities by electrifying the region’s homes and vehicles and powering them with solar energy would save the average household almost $5,000 a year, generate more than 24,000 jobs and provide an overall annual economic benefit of approximately $3.9 billion.

As people have gradually migrated to the world’s cities, urban areas have migrated upward to scrape the sky. And yet, while one of the first principles of power generation is to generate as close as possible to the point of consumption, energy systems have long been designed to deliver electricity to major cities from distant hubs. But now, thanks to recent advances in solar panel energy density and building-integrated PV, vertical cities could soon be standing tall under their own power.

Maxeon Solar Technologies has released an integrated home energy management system to engage with solar PV, batteries, heating, cooling, and appliances.

The partnership between Chinese inverter maker Sungrow and Sydney-based wholesaler Solar Juice has been taken to a new level after the partners signed a 2 GW capacity distribution contract.

A trio of Victorian electricity distributors are turning to new, smarter technologies including more battery energy storage systems and demand management programs as they seek to meet changing customer needs and improve grid reliability in areas where the low-voltage distribution network is constrained.

An estimated 13,000 rooftop solar PV customers in Australia’s far north face having their feed-in tariff for solar power exported to the grid slashed by more than half with the Northern Territory government revealing plans to usher in changes to the existing scheme from 1 July.