Finance

The Kidston solar-pumped hydro project is back on its feet after Japanese utility J-Power and Genex Power renegotiated their deal with the extension of funding provided by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Board earlier this month. The project had been thrown off-course after a shock decision by EnergyAustralia not to finalise a purchase agreement.

A group of Melbourne’s prominent universities and businesses are combining their purchasing power to source their electricity from a large scale renewable energy project in Victoria.

Under the Electricity Strategy released on Friday, the NSW Government has unveiled a plan to deliver Australia’s first coordinated Renewable Energy Zone in the Central-West, seeking to support the new generation needed to get energy bills down. The administration has also pledged to give NSW one of the world’s highest reliability targets to cope with the changing electricity mix and unexpected generator outages.

In late September, Western Australia’s government-owned electric utility registered an approximate AUD 657 million ($442.8 million) loss – much of it attributed to asset and contract writedowns. However, the utility was quick to blame rooftop PV for eating into its revenues, while fixed costs remained unchanged or increased. Revenues for the utility were down 4.7% for the year, to AUD 2.8 billion.

Ernst & Young Australia (EY) are calling for a significant capital injection into the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) at this week’s COAG Energy Council meeting. EY wants to expand AEMO’s powers toward fixing the nation’s embattled energy grid.

The renewables investment arm of Octopus Group is seeking to raise up to £250 million ($475 million) through a major initial public offering for investment in onshore wind and solar assets in Europe and Australia. It aims to invest in already operating, in construction and construction-ready assets.

The Sydney-based developer has received credit approval to fund two of its solar projects. The announcement comes only days after Genex resumed trading on the Australian stock exchange in the wake of the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund’s decision to extend offer of funding for the 250 MW Kidston pumped storage hydro project.

There’s no shortage of action in the New South Wales renewable-energy scene, with some 19.4 GW of large-scale renewable energy projects approved or progressing through the planning system, and around 2.5 GW of grid-scale solar under construction. Plus there’s 2 GW of generation and 175 hours of storage planned for the pumped-hydro project known as Snowy 2.0 – and that’s just what’s happening at the big end of town.

New analysis from recruitment firm Robert Walters shows continued growth in the renewables sector is bringing continued growth in wages along with it.

Two of Australia’s richest people, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, have jointly invested “tens of millions of dollars” in the ambitious Sun Cable projects, which would export solar energy from the Outback to power Singapore. The capital raising will enable developers Sun Cable to pay for development work for the undersea power link.