Long read: What broke at Oakey
With its high wholesale power prices, attractiveness to capital, wide open spaces and abundant sunshine, there is every reason to believe Australia is a PV project developer’s nirvana. However, as the wreckage at the 55 MW Oakey 2 site in Queensland reveals, challenges under the Australian sun should not be taken lightly.
Newcastle unveils 5 MW solar farm on disused landfill
Located on a disused landfill that was once part of a coal mine, the newly completed solar farm will save ratepayers around $9 million over its 25-year lifespan.
Vietnam introduces auction scheme for large-scale PV
With the publication of Notification No. 402/TB-VPCP on Nov. 22, the Vietnamese government has cemented its transition from feed-in tariffs to auctions, in a clear step away from earlier promises to revive the FIT scheme.
Another Riverina solar project gets go-ahead
The 90 MW West Wyalong Solar Farm has become the latest addition to the swelling solar PV pipeline in the Riverina region having secured the NSW Government’s approval.
APA opens new solar farm in its Western Australian renewables precinct
Gas pipeline giant APA Group has formally opened a 19.25 MW Badgingarra Solar Farm in Hill River, Western Australia. The project is colocated with a 130 MW wind farm.
1414 Degrees to power abandoned Aurora CSP site with PV and thermal storage
Adelaide-based energy storage specialist 1414 Degrees has announced plans to acquire SolarReserve Australia II, which owns the Aurora Solar Energy Project in South Australia and two solar sites in New South Wales. The company proposes to use the Aurora site to build a massive 400 MW solar farm with progressive thermal storage capacity to several thousand MWh.
Reindustrialising Australia, the path to 500% renewables
Australia has an undisputed competitive advantage when it comes to renewable energy, and many believe we can become a clean energy exportation superpower, but we have to reindustrialise ourselves first.
Total completes 16 MW/10 MWh solar+storage project in New Caledonia
The project is an extension of the Hélio Boulouparis 1 installation, which was commissioned in May 2017 with 11.2 MW of capacity.
183 MW solar farm approved for south-west WA, another 100 MW project on the cards
Western Australia’s South West has attracted the interest of Melbourne-based developer South Energy, which has proposed two utility-scale solar projects for the region. One has already secured development approval, while the other one will be discussed next week.
Clean energy investment confidence continues to slide
A survey run by the Clean Energy Council shows confidence in new clean energy investment continued to weaken over the past six months. While a big majority of industry representatives expect to hire more staff in the next 12 months, the biggest challenges to developing new projects remain unchanged with grid connection process and technical requirements and policy uncertainty at the top of their list of concerns.
