Markets & Policy

Australian startup H2X is banking on bringing automotive manufacturing back to Australia with hydrogen. After its Warrego ute was met with startling fanfare last week, pv magazine Australia caught up with the company’s corporate affairs specialist, Tony Blackie.

Europe plans to introduce a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in two years, requiring importers to pay a carbon price on steel, iron, aluminium, cement, electricity and fertiliser initially. Experts explain what the changes will mean for Australia’s export future, and just how little the legality debate matters.

As part of the Western Australian government’s 2021-22 Budget, Premier Mark McGowan announced a new $50 million fund to stimulate the growth of the state’s green hydrogen industry for domestic use and exports. The fund comes on top of several ongoing initiatives and includes funding for private industry feasibility studies, including one which will see bp repurpose its Kwinana Oil Refinery into a green fuels hub.

A group of biologists in the United States working with a bacteria discovered a mechanism that could be used to convert electricity into biofuels or other useful substances. With better understanding of the genetics, the group says the mechanism could rival hydrogen for the storage of renewable energy.

Electric vehicles could autonomously transport electrons between where they’re generated and where they’re needed based on algorithms and smart software, predicts JET Charge CEO Tim Washington. Such a future, he admits, is “pretty sci-fi” and still a while off.

Plans to create hydrogen by burning wood have swollen in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley, after sawmill offshoot, Sweetman Renewables, yesterday announced a $15 million deal with Singapore’s CAC-H₂ to construct the country’s largest wood-fed hydrogen production plant.

For a small infrastructure investment in rooftop solar systems, state governments can make a material difference to the lives of social housing tenants, and further their net-zero ambitions. Western Australia reports another win-win.

Australia is currently staring down a suite of reforms which could stifle our rapid and sensible transition to clean energy.

Put solar in your hot water tank! Off-peak electricity rates are fast becoming an unhelpful price signal for rooftop solar owners, who benefit by self consuming their excess solar ahead of drawing electricity from the grid at any time of day.

Hive Energy, Ethical Power Group and Solar South West have set up a joint venture they hope will lead to 350 MW of utility scale installations in a country which does not suffer from grid congestion and which appears to have an energy transition-friendly administration.