ACT faces ‘substantial’ electricity bill increase, Evoenergy blames renewable energy targets
Evoenergy has blamed the Australian Capital Territory’s renewable energy targets for its proposed price hike, which would see average residential customers pay around 40% more for network charges, amounting to around $280 per year.
Australia’s renewable growth outpaces world, even as new report finds record global expansion in 2020
More than 260 GW of renewable energy was added globally in 2020, surpassing 2019’s previous net increase record by almost 50%, data from the International Renewable Energy Agency found. Australia’s pace of growth was almost double the global average, coming in at 18.4%.
Sunday read: Building PV for the future
Financiers and investors have always understood that PV power plants play a more prominent role than just generating profits – they also produce electricity without emitting carbon. Lately, the sector is discovering that PV can fulfill a much larger range of environmental functions – improving biodiversity, removing carbon from enriched soils, and producing food in an environmentally sustainable way. Everoze Partner Ragna Schmidt-Haupt argues that putting ecological sustainability at the heart of PV project planning and operation should become the new standard.
AEMO publishes ‘Engineering Framework’ for accelerating energy transition
The Australian Energy Market Operator has published an engineering framework as it looks to conceive a broader framework for how the National Energy Market can facilitate the accelerating energy transition.
Here’s what Biden’s infrastructure bill offers solar and cleantech
The $2 trillion package includes a proposed 10-year extension of the ITC and PTC and calls for further incentives to add transmission capacity. Most solar advocates liked it, but one nonprofit panned it as being too industry-friendly.
Apple’s suppliers embrace renewable energy
The move is part of the U.S. technology company’s 2030 plan to rely 100% on renewable energy.
Solar steals the show at Melbourne Design Week
An independent exhibition brought to Melbourne Design Week by a group of 15 of the city’s top architectural firms demonstrates the blueprint for Melbourne’s transformation to “A New Normal”. “A New Normal” is a plan to transform Greater Melbourne into a self-sufficient city by 2030.
Solar earns the thirst, you drink the beer – new platform lets you trade PV for VB
Iconic Australian beer Victoria Bitter has partnered with Diamond Energy and Power Ledger to develop Solar Exchange, a blockchain-enabled platform that allows residential PV owners to exchange their excess solar for cases of beer. This is not an April Fool’s prank, miracles do happen, stay calm and exchange your excess solar for slabs!
Baywa’s ‘fruitvoltaic’ project to bear fruit – 23 tons a year, in fact
A 1.2 MWp installation featuring more than 4,500 solar panels has sheltered a berry crop from high temperatures and damp to strengthen the claims made by agrivoltaics companies that their systems can offer climate change mitigation as well as clean energy.
Solar still largely underestimated
Two recent studies have separately shown that many scenarios assessing global decarbonization pathways are still predicting too-low future PV capacity and too-high LCOEs for the solar technology. The researchers analyzed scenarios provided by scientific researchers, government bodies and non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the European Commission, the Indian government, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), among others.
