Utility Scale PV

Power and water are a classic utility couple. SA Water has switched up the relationship with another solar plant energised in its massive solar rollout that is set to save on both costs and carbon.

The state-owned engineer and solar EPC Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has commissioned a 25 MW project at NTPC’s Simhadri thermal power station, in Andhra Pradesh.

Rising efficiencies and the plummeting cost of solar modules over the past few years, recent months notwithstanding, are leading innovators toward ideas that may look unusual in the current tracker-dominated world of large-scale solar parks. Advocates of the new approaches argue that they leave traditional models looking decidedly flat by comparison.

Drones have already established themselves in industries as disparate as warfare, wedding photography, and burrito delivery, and increasingly the solar sector is taking the high road, too. Combined with thermal imaging, drones have the potential to obviate expensive maintenance costs for large-scale solar plants, as well as C&I and growing niches like floating PV. But how useful are they, and what role does AI play in making the most of a bird’s eye view?

The Australian arm of Canadian clean energy investment firm Amp Energy expects to begin energisation of its 85 MW Hillston Solar Farm in New South Wales early next year after confirming it had achieved financial close for the estimated $100 million project.

French energy giant EDF has revealed the latest element of its planned expansion into the Australian renewable energy market, teaming with New South Wales-based miner Malabar Resources to jointly develop large-scale solar PV projects in the Hunter Valley.

Australian renewable energy developer ACE Power has called on the federal government to set clear policy and emissions targets as it looks to make an impact on the nation’s transition to renewables with an estimated 1.3 GW portfolio of large-scale solar PV, wind and battery energy storage projects in development.

Price increases, supply chain disruptions, and a series of trade risks are threatening the U.S.’s ability to decarbonise the grid, warned SEIA president and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper.

A roadmap to rapid carbon emission reduction has suggested the nation add 2.4 GW of generation capacity next year as part of a 15 GW new-solar target this decade. The claims of solar-plus-storage should be ignored for now, according to a new policy document, because batteries will make PV less competitive with coal.

A couple of years ago Central Queensland, at the heart of coal country and the nexus of manufacturing opportunity, became a beacon to energy advisory firm Energy Estate and international renewables developer RES. Moah Creek Renewable Energy Project, the first stage of their gigawatt-scale firmed renewable energy project is about to be introduced to the community.