Utility Scale PV

Across Australia shopping centres are starting to realise their expansive car parks are the perfect solar farms. Not only do the centres get solar energy at peak times, but customers can avoid the real threat of car-related bodily burns by parking in the shade of a solar array.

While it seeks to build one of Australia’s biggest coal mines, Adani has grown more cautious on solar investment after suffering connection delays on its first renewables project in Australia.

One of Queensland’s largest solar developments near Miles has signed up to connect to the state’s publicly-owned electricity grid.

The Clean Energy Council aims to establish benefit sharing, tailored to local contexts, as a feature of Australia’s renewable-energy projects. Its prescient and concise “how-to” guide builds on the industry’s successes so far.

With 2019 already a record year for utility solar, wind and storage project proposals, Norwegian-based energy analyst Rystad Energy predicts Australia’s renewables boom could see coal-fired generation extinct by 2040. According to the Australian National University (ANU), the unprecedented growth in generation from wind and solar can slash Australia’s carbon emissions by 4% over the next few years, but the Clean Energy Council sees things differently.

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has made a final rule to improve publicly available information about new utility-scale projects, making it easier for wind and solar developers to decide on where to locate new generators and avoid cost blowouts amid grid congestion and connection challenges.

Australian renewables developer Windlab has announced further delays on its landmark energy park in north Queensland after its EPC contractor failed to secure a fully functioning connection agreement.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has released its 2018-19 Annual Report on its investment into Australia’s clean energy transition. The report laud’s CEFC investment and provides optimistic reading for the energy transition.

The Australian utility-scale PV and wind industries have just gone through a record two years of construction and commissioning. More specifically, writes Rystad Energy’s David Dixon, utility-scale PV has transformed from a megawatt-scale market to one measured in gigawatts. The resultant boom in utility-scale PV in the country has attracted developers, EPCs and OEMs, from at home and across the globe.

Lightsource BP has signed financing agreements to develop its first utility-scale solar project in Australia. The 200 MW solar farm, near Wellington, New South Wales, is the largest single plant to be financed by the U.K. solar developer to date and one of the biggest projects in Australia to use bifacial PV.