Finance

LAVO, which entered the market with its hydrogen battery in 2021, has soft launched a new Energy-as-a-Service model. Partnering with Yingli Solar, LAVO says it can install and maintain solar, battery and EV charging systems at no upfront cost to Australian households, who will then pay off the systems via a 10-year subscription.

The Brookfield-led consortium looking to acquire Origin Energy has come back with a “best and final” bid that values the company at approximately $20 billion (USD 12.85 billion). The offer comes just days after the energy utility’s largest shareholder rejected the previous bid.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, offers bite-sized analysis on solar PV module supply and price trends.

One of Australia’s “big four” banks, the Commonwealth Bank, will begin offering interest-free finance up to $30,000 to install rooftop solar and home batteries with select merchants. The program will also allow customers to split repayments into instalments over one to five years.

SunDrive Solar, a Sydney-based startup working to replace the silver in solar cells with copper, has been allocated $11 million (USD 7 million) by ARENA to expand its metallised cell production to a commercial scale of more than 100 MW per annum. Few details or timeframes for the scaling have been provided, however.

The Commonwealth government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) approved record funds in FY22/23, allocating $544.1 million (USD 345 million) to 60 projects in the year.

The Queensland government has announced $1.3 billion (USD 820 million) package to fund the next stages of its major transmission CopperString 2032 project, targeting construction in mid-2024. The transmission line will connect the critical minerals-rich region of North Queensland to renewable energy projects to hopefully kickstart green processing and manufacturing.

Asset management company Sosteneo Infrastructure Partners has made its first foray into the Australian renewable energy market, purchasing the 185 MW/370 MWh Koorangie Energy Storage System in northern Victoria from Edify Energy.

As Australia’s big battery fleet continues to charge ahead, the battery revenue stack is evolving – and so are financing opportunities.

Applications are open for grants of up to $750,000 (USD 479,000) under a new Victorian government program that aims to support Victorian manufacturers to be part of the growing renewable energy supply chain and boost the production of renewable energy products and components.