Legal

The deployment of standalone power systems in the National Electricity Market is expected to accelerate after the Australian Energy Market Commission this week published new rules allowing distributors to install the renewables-based technology in the five market jurisdictions.

A Tasmanian solar installer has been prosecuted for providing a false signature on a certificate form after being investigated by the Clean Energy Regulator. The Regulator has this month also suspended the registration of two solar agents, one permanently.

Shipping containers storing roughly 100MW of LONGi solar modules have been released, reports ROTH Capital Partners in an industry note, while Trina has had the vast majority of its detained product released, if not all of it entirely.

In 2002, the Fraunhofer ISE patented the HERIC circuit for highly efficient inverters. Since then, the institute says, it has recorded out-of-court settlements in seven patent infringement lawsuits against companies from China, Taiwan and Germany.

Australia’s largest petroleum company Ampol has revealed its ambition to expand into the nation’s energy market by submitting an application to the industry regulator for licences to retail electricity and gas in Australia.

Victorian network utility AusNet Services appears certain to be entirely foreign owned after shareholders overwhelmingly approved the sale of the company to a consortium led by Canadian asset management group Brookfield.

This year will see a suite of new rules introduced governing the sale and installation of rooftop solar. While the Clean Energy Regulator’s new rules will apply across the country, Victoria’s state government has also introduced its own set of additional ordinances – among them, a ban on door-to-door sales or cold-calling for solar, electricity and gas companies alike.

Indigenous communities have some of the most unreliable, expensive power in Australia, with a recent study finding almost three quarters of households in remote Northern Territory communities lost power more than 10 times, often for significant periods on “dangerously” hot days. Alarmingly, regulations have until now completely blocked communities in public housing from connecting rooftop solar because they use a prepaid meter system.

When warnings of an end of year solar industry shutdown flared last week caused by rather incomprehensible strings of letters and numbers, gauging how the pieces fit together wasn’t easy. With a resolution all but officially confirmed, it appears the threat of a December 18 Armageddon have been averted, but the whole saga is, as Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes put it, is “a masterclass in how Australian exceptionalism can backfire.”

As power systems integrate more digital and inverter-based devices, the guidelines and technical standards for these resources are evolving, and none as quickly and urgently as cybersecurity standards. New approaches to cyber defence are now needed to protect more interconnected systems with diverse owners, manufacturers, and system architectures. However, current cybersecurity standards for energy devices are still patchy. Upcoming efforts are aimed at changing that, reports NREL’s Connor O’Neil.