Finance

The Sydney-based developer has raised funding for the development of a 30 MW CSP project which will be collocated with a 20 MW PV plant. The company’s innovative technology, which uses sodium as a heat transfer fluid to capture concentrated solar energy that can then be stored and used on-demand on the utility-scale, has earned Vast Solar an international award for dispatchable renewable energy technology.

With hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and funds under management Macquarie Group is seeking to amplify its considerable influence, bringing investment and reporting to bear on accelerating climate mitigation and adaptation.

Western Australia’s biggest generator and retailer Synergy has blamed rooftop solar for bleeding red ink in the past financial year.

Despite a lack of initiative for the residential battery uptake on the federal level, action on the state and territorial level has been vigorous. In the run-up to the launch of the NSW subsidy scheme, sonnen CEO of APAC Nathan Dunn is talking about the manufacturer’s experience with other subsidy schemes in Australia and what it takes for a successful program.

Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of Atlassian Corp, has used the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York to announce plans to help fund the ambitious 10 GW, $20 billion, Sun Cable Project in the Northern Territory (NT).

Australia’s chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel continues to voice his support for some modicum of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Australia’s hydrogen future, providing a lifeline to fossil fuel producers. While Finkel’s argument holds some water, it holds nowhere near enough water to produce a hydrogen economy. 

Research has found even short-lived, 10 to 15-year solar panels could provide enough return for bankable projects. The researchers believe panel costs, coupled with an industry mindset now fixed on the final solar energy price rather than costs per kilowatt installed, may open opportunities for PV products currently snubbed because of a short lifecycle.

Canada’s Hydrostor has closed US$37 million (AU$54,6 million) in growth financing. The company plans to use the funding to complete construction of the 5 MW/10 MWh Angas Project in South Australia and to advance its 2 GW pipeline of large-scale advanced compressed air energy storage projects.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is allocating $460,500 in funding to investigate opportunities for using renewables in process heating in manufacturing.

A report by Germany’s Energy Watch Group thinktank has said we would be better off sticking to coal and oil than switching to gas because emissions of methane, the most potent greenhouse gas, caused by gas extraction render any related carbon savings irrelevant.