Utility Scale PV

Spanish giant Iberdrola has broken ground on its 317 MW Port Augusta hybrid wind and solar farm, set to be the largest in Australia. The global energy company stressed its desire to increase its renewable presence in Australia on the day, betting on Australia’s potential for a green recovery from the economic strife of Covid-19.

The advance of PV has been lauded by the International Energy Agency as it launched the latest edition of a flagship World Energy Outlook 2020 report overshadowed by the Covid-19 crisis and uncertainty over how long the economic recovery could take.

Stanford professors Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics for developing a new auction theory and new auction formats for goods and services. Their findings were already successfully used in the electricity energy sector and may now meet the challenge on how to better shape clean energy procurements.

The Western Australian Government’s Energy Transformation Taskforce has revealed its first blueprint for the isolated state’s energy system transformation over the next two decades. The blueprint, which features four separate models, sees rooftop solar and accompanying battery storage excel in the coming years, although it suggests coal-fired power will still have a large presence.

Sustainable intentions come together in the signing of a green loan to fund ongoing development of FRV’s Sebastopol Solar Farm, which lender ING says contributes towards its “ambition to align our lending portfolio with the Paris Agreement goals”.

One of the few benefits of COVID-19 is the ability to virtually attend conferences that may previously have been a plane ticket too far. Tomorrow’s South Australian Renewable Energy Conference is a window of opportunity …

German developer Next2Sun has completed a 4.1 MW solar plant built with roughly 11,000 bifacial panels provided by Chinese manufacturer Jolywood.

Powerlink Queensland has launched its ‘system strength as a service’ model in Far North Queensland through a deal with renewable energy giant Neoen’s 157 MW Kaban Green Power Hub. Powerlink Queensland’s model is to install a large synchronous condenser and then on-sell its system strength capacity to multiple renewable energy projects, a way to increase renewable energy integration into congested parts of the grid.

Nextracker’s NX Horizon has delivered some pretty impressive results in testing, results that caught that eye of Neoen and EPC contractor Sterling & Wilson to incorporate the bifacial tracking system into what is to be Australia’s largest solar power plant in Queensland’s Western Downs.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales have run the numbers, run them again, and then run them a third time to make triply sure. Australia’s solar resources and the rapidly falling costs of solar-powered hydrogen production mean that the future hydrogen economy is green whether the Morrison Government likes it or not.