Perovskite solar cell specialist Greatcell Solar has failed to secured refinancing for its activities and has been forced to appoint administrators. The company lays the blame at the federal government’s door, pointing to the R&D rebate changes and policy settings that are unsupportive of renewable energy investment as the reasons behind its downfall.

The Canadian battery manufacturer says its order book has crossed the $1.5 million mark in less than two weeks after joining the South Australian Home Battery Scheme.

A new report analyzing the world’s largest lithium-ion battery’s performance in the first year of operation shows the Hornsdale Power Reserve has delivered on high expectations of its performance and market impact. It has helped stabilize the grid, avoid outages and reduce system costs, as well as triggered a surge in uptake of similar fast response systems across Australia.

After around 1200 applications were lodged for the original 1500 packages in as little as two weeks, the Queensland government has introduced an additional 1000 battery grant packages to help households and small businesses cut their energy bills with the help of solar and storage.

The University of Queensland has completed the purchase of the $125 Warwick Solar Farm in the Southern Downs region, making it the largest solar asset in ownership of an Australian university. Lendlease will act as developer on the project.

The second phase of the proposed 250 MW virtual power plant will see Tesla Powerwall batteries and solar panels installed on 1,000 South Australian households.

Greenpeace operates a renewables-powered electricity retailer in Germany, in a Hamburg-based operation. It has proposed purchasing giant utility RWE’s coal power plants and replace them with 8.2 GW of wind and solar power plants. Approximately €7 billion will be invested in the new facilities, which could be built without subsidies – Greenpeace Energy claims.

Infradebt has provided a $22.2 million senior debt facility for Epuron’s portfolio of operating solar assets in the Northern Territory with the accumulated capacity of close to 7 MW.

Australian mining company Resolute Mining has inked a JDA and PPA with Ignite Energy, to construct what it says is the world’s largest off-grid solar hybrid plant, at one of its gold mines in Mali.

The Chinese manufacturer saw its shipments increase 24.4% year-on-year, to around 3 GW of modules in the latest quarter, with overseas shipped products accounting for approximately 80% of sales. The outlook for full fiscal 2018 was maintained almost unchanged, while new positive changes from policy side in China are confirmed.