Balance of Systems

Australian resources developer Vecco Group has secured state government backing to build a $26 million (USD 17 million) vanadium electrolyte manufacturing facility in the north Queensland city of Townsville with production set to be used in grid-scale vanadium flow battery projects.

Australian clean tech company Graphene Manufacturing Group plans to scale up the development of its battery energy storage technology that it claims charges 70 times faster than a lithium-ion battery and has three times more battery life.

Spanish company PV Hardware has enjoyed its most successful year in the Australian market with the company commencing construction on more than 1 GW of utility scale projects in 2022 and the cleantech manufacturer believes the best is yet to come.

United States-based solar tracker provider Array Technologies is planning to set up manufacturing operations in Australia after being awarded a contract to supply trackers for a 102 MW solar farm being developed in Victoria’s northeast.

California-based Yoshino Technology has developed portable batteries using solid-state Li-NCM cell technology. The four variants come with power outputs of 330 W, 660 W, 2,000 W, and 4,000 W.

Singapore-based electronics giant Flex announced that its subsidiary, Nextracker, has publicly filed a registration statement for an initial public offering.

The Australian government will commence talks with investors and industry this week on the formation of a $15 billion (USD 10.2 billion) national reconstruction fund that aims to boost investment in onshore manufacturing, including the production of solar panels, batteries and hydrogen electrolysers, and components for wind turbines.

Australian renewables developer North Harbour Clean Energy will team with European battery energy storage systems supplier CellCube to establish a vanadium redox flow battery manufacturing and assembly facility in Australia with a projected capacity of up to 1 GW/8 GWh per annum.

The Queensland government is forecasting a renewables-led manufacturing and jobs boom in the state with hundreds of Australian and international companies registering their interest in supplying the thousands of solar panels, batteries, wind turbines, and kilometres of transmission lines the state says it will need to deliver its $62 billion (USD 40 billion) energy transformation plan.

Australia’s two dominant tracker companies, Nextracker and Array Technologies, are launching terrain following products which the companies claim mitigate, sometimes even eliminate, the need for earthworks on site, opening up a host of previously unsuitable land for solar. Nextracker has just completed its first terrain-following project in Australia, with Array Technologies’ line set for delivery in the second half of 2023.