Utility Scale PV

Australia’s biggest coal miner has inked a major renewable energy deal that will utilise solar, wind and pumped hydro to provide about half the forecasted electricity demand of its central Queensland operations.

Mytilineos’ 75 MW Wyalong Solar Farm in the New South Wales Riverina region has now begun feeding into the grid, with almost two thirds of its generation contracted to NBN Australia, the national broadband network.

Rystad Energy believes China could be on track for another record year in 2023, with expectations for more than 150 GW of new PV capacity. The Norwegian consultancy says the country could also potentially install 165 GW in 2024 and 170 GW in 2025.

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has proposed increasing price caps on the country’s main electricity market. This is meant to allow investors to respond to fill gaps created by ageing coal generation.

Japanese company IHI Corporation, which specialises in green ammonia technology to decarbonise industry, has joined the consortium of companies developing the green hydrogen hub HyNQ – North Queensland Clean Energy Project.

The figures for large-scale certificates registrations across most of Australia this year are dismal, despite the nation adopting a far brighter policy landscape. “There’s a very large discrepancy between rhetoric and what’s actually occurring,” Sunwiz managing director Warwick Johnston tells pv magazine.

Zonal Renewables plans to construct a new 100 MW floating solar project on a 90-hectare fishpond in the Philippines, in Cadiz, Negros Occidental province.

Gentari, a subsidiary of Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas, plans to build between 5 GW to 8 GW of solar, wind and battery projects in Australia by 2030. The ambition follows its acquisition and rebranding of Wirsol Energy, which marked the Malaysian company’s entry into the Australian renewable energy market.

SunCable’s sale to Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures has today been completed, with the company flagging new project elements, including a subsea cable manufacturing and testing facility, as well as reiterating its vision of delivering bulk energy to Singapore via undersea cables.

Victorian company Proa says it has found a software-driven solution to the grid connection rules which have crippled solar projects in the Northern Territory. Requiring only a fractional amount of battery storage, the solution “replaces lithium with smarts” and effectively enables solar to be “scheduled,” Managing Director Victor Depoorter tells pv magazine Australia.