Markets

The Queensland government is forecasting a renewables-led manufacturing and jobs boom in the state with hundreds of Australian and international companies registering their interest in supplying the thousands of solar panels, batteries, wind turbines, and kilometres of transmission lines the state says it will need to deliver its $62 billion (USD 40 billion) energy transformation plan.

Corporations in the Asia-Pacific region are set to contract a record 7 GW of renewable capacity in 2022, according to a new report by Wood Mackenzie. Solar accounts for 57% of the region’s contracted corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) to date. India, Australia and Taiwan account for 89% of overall capacity in the region.

Australia has paid just 38% of its “fair share” towards the internationally agreed climate finance target. The revelation speaks to the issue of fairness – a key topic at COP27, currently underway in Egypt. But Australia’s premier renewable energy event offered little hope that questions of equity and deep sustainability are being considered here, even by the architects of our own transition.

As uplifting as Australia’s climate turn around is, SMA Australia’s Joshua Birmingham says it would be “naive” to ignore the fact that this rapid growth will present challenges for the industry, with demand potentially outstripping supply in many key areas of the renewable energy value chain. 

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says that solar could become the backbone of Indonesia’s energy system by 2030. However, the nation’s own expectations are still far off from IRENA’s scenarios.

The New South Wales government will stage a competitive tender to secure at least 600 MW of long duration storage as well as 380 MW of firming capacity as the state looks to fill the gap created by the impending closure of the country’s biggest coal generator.

The worst effects of the pandemic may have passed, but supply chain disruptions continue to be felt across the world. The effects of the war in Ukraine are also evident to all of us in our daily lives, from commodities to energy, food supply chains and beyond. The disruption in the battery energy storage system (BESS) supply chain is no different, writes Cormac O’Laoire, senior manager of market intelligence at Clean Energy Associates. Indeed, as the cost of raw materials such as lithium climb, battery prices are being driven materially higher, on some accounts by 20% to 30%, rendering some projects uneconomical.

French renewables developer Neoen has credited the Victorian Big Battery with almost tripling its storage revenues in the first nine months of 2022. To September, the company’s revenues totalled $547 million (USD 347.4 million), with growth in solar and wind revenues paling beside the massive surge from battery storage.

The New South Wales government has formally declared the state’s third Renewable Energy Zone (REZ). The South West REZ, as its called, is centred around the towns of Hay and Balranald in the state’s western Riverina region, with initial expressions of interest in the zone attracting up to 34 GW of generation proposals – more than 13 times the intended capacity of 2.5 GW.

While not one of the big five-year-cycle COPs like Paris or Glasgow, COP27 is still hugely important, write Wood Mackenzie analysts. The fallout from the conflict in Ukraine has tilted the precarious balance of the energy trilemma – sustainability; affordability; security – towards the latter. But despite this temporary setback, some progress should still be possible.