Markets & Policy

The Australian government’s green bank has extended its collaboration with the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, committing up to $200 million as part of a clean energy asset purchasing program to help Australian businesses invest in energy efficient and renewable technologies to cut costs and reduce emissions.

Construction has commenced on what will be Western Australia’s biggest battery energy storage system with the first of the battery units installed for the 100 MW/200 MWh Kwinana Big Battery being built at the site of the decommissioned Kwinana Power Station near Perth.

We in the solar industry are used to our share of craziness. For us, business as usual is more the exception than the rule. We are used to coping with all sorts of imponderables – chaos as usual. Companies that have mastered this from years of training will probably be able to navigate their businesses through these troubled times. Martin Schachinger of pvXchange finds that it has been a long time since the PV market has been as crazy as it is now. Prices are rising steadily across the board, but not for solar panels.

Queensland’s publicly-owned energy generator and retailer CleanCo has inked a long-term deal to supply shopping centre major Scentre Group with 100% renewable electricity for its Westfield centres across the state from 2025.

The Australian Capital Territory government has unveiled plans to phase out the use of fossil gas by 2045 at the latest and move the market towards a net zero emissions future by “electrifying Canberra with renewable electricity over the next two decades”.

Researchers in Russia have developed a new sodium-vanadium phosphate fluoride powder. It has a particular crystal structure that provides superior energy storage capacity in the battery cathode.

New legislation to enshrine Australia’s 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets into law has cleared the first hurdle with the Federal Government’s climate change bill passing through the parliament’s lower house.

The latest modelling from Bloomberg senior clean energy analyst Rob Barnett indicates a 30% increase in global PV deployment this year, and double-digit growth through 2025.

Malaysia’s largest electricity provider Tenaga Nasional Berhad has announced plans to fast track the closure of its coal-fired power plants to hasten the transition of its generation fleet from fossil fuels to renewable sources including large-scale solar PV and green hydrogen.

French company Neoen has seen its storage revenue “more than tripled” as a result of its recently commissioned Victorian Big Battery coupled with Australia’s energy crisis. In other news, the company signed a 10 year power offtake agreement with Flow Power for its “flagship” Goyder Renewables Zone project in South Australia.