Markets & Policy

The city authority wants a developer to construct a 7 MW solar project for it as part of a push to widen its sources of electricity, and says clean energy will be cheaper than – largely coal-fired – grid power from Eskom.

The two batteries have a storage capacity of 13 and 19.5 kWh, respectively. Both lithium-ion systems use LiFePO4 as the cathode material and have a round-trip efficiency of over 86%.

Renewable energy investment fund Solar Bay and logistic company Logos have commenced construction of Australia’s largest roof-mounted solar PV system, airlifting in the first of more than 120,000 solar panels that will be installed atop an 800,000sqm industrial warehousing facility in south-western Sydney.

Power utility Alinta Energy expects work on a 45 MW solar farm and 35 MW battery energy storage system planned for Western Australia’s Pilbara region to commence before the end of the year following the signing of a large-scale renewable power purchase agreement with international mining giant BHP.

Australian-based mining giant Fortescue Metals Group has announced it will deploy an additional 2 GW to 3 GW of renewable energy generation and battery storage as part of a more-than $9 billion plan to decarbonise its iron-ore operations by 2030.

Victoria’s ongoing transition to renewable energy sources, including the installation of hundreds of thousands of rooftop solar PV systems, has helped the state “smash” its 2020 emission reduction targets on the path to net zero by 2050.

Energy Vault’s EVx storage system is comparable to pumped hydro, using grid-scale renewable energy when supply is abundant to drive motors and raise 30-ton blocks on a six-arm crane tower, rather than water, up to a height. When power needs to be discharged back to the grid, the blocks are lowered, harvesting the kinetic energy.

Seven solar installers in New South Wales have had their electrical contractor licences stripped by the state government regulator after investigations found they had signed off on rooftop PV installations while they were interstate or overseas.

Solar PV technology manufacturer Canadian Solar plans to quadruple its battery manufacturing capacity by the end of 2023. A part of that strategy is a new 2.8 MWh lithium-ferro phosphate battery which will be unveiled at the RE+ conference in California this week.

Prime Infra recently acquired a 500 MW pumped storage hydropower project in Rizal province in the Philippines. The company is also developing a 1.4 GW facility in the country.