Markets & Policy

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union is recommending an overhaul of policies to promote manufacturing in regional Australia along with a major push to create new jobs in a range of industries, including lithium batteries, green hydrogen and renewables.

Today, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has switched to 100% renewable electricity as it started purchasing clean power from the last stage of South Australia’s Hornsdale Wind Farm.

iSwitch, Singapore’s largest green energy retailer, and one of the city-state’s top three retailers overall, has emerged as the first potential customer for the $25 billion Sun Cable Project. This pledge is the second significant boost for the project in the last week after tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes declared he would help fund the project.

The lights are on for Queensland’s Solar for Renters program, but nobody’s home. In a state where solar should be selling faster than hotcakes, landlords and tenants are slow to take up the government’s solar rebate.

The Boonanarring Mineral Sands Project in the North Perth Basin is set to receive a behind-the-meter installation to complement its existing grid-connected power supply. The project is the first significant investment by Climate Capital after its first-round capital raise 18-months ago.

A 6 MW solar plant and 5 MW/2.5 MWh storage system are set to increase the share of renewable electricity on the Pacific island of Nauru from 3% to 47%. The $27 million project is being supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

As part of a broader push to develop a domestic hydrogen industry, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing $2.9 million for two studies into using solar and wind-powered hydrogen for ammonia. Both project are located in Queensland and presently use natural gas as feedstock.

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.

Pumped hydro and battery-storage projects took the lion’s share of feasibility-study grants today awarded under the NSW Emerging Energy Program. Alongside VPP proposals, they feature also in the shortlist of 21 projects now in the running for capital funding.

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.