Markets & Policy

It may just be an MOU, and there are no timeframes attached, but the agreement between two major emitters to continue and prioritise their development of green-processes for producing steel from iron ore bodes well for Australian manufacturing strength and marketability.

Overwhelmed by interest in its proposed Central-Orana Renewable Energy Zone and then in the New England REZ, the New South Wales Government has now opened the floodgates to the South-West.

The past 12 months have proved profitable for polysilicon manufacturers, as selling prices have soared to levels not seen since 2011. However, with major new capacity expansions on the horizon from most of the leading manufacturers, and new players planning to enter the scene, the market balance looks set to shift. Exawatt’s Alex Barrows rounds up where the industry stands and what might happen next.

Sujoy Ghosh, First Solar’s vice president for India and the Asia-Pacific region, speaks to pv magazine India’s Uma Gupta about the company’s plans to set up a 3.3 GW module fab in India to service the local market.

Owners of electric cars in South Australia will soon be charged for every kilometre they drive with the state government’s push to impose a tax on electric vehicles gathering speed with a Bill to allow the new road-user levy passed in the Upper House.

Israel-based Augwind has built its first 250 kW/1 MWh compressed air storage system for the collective community of Yahel, in the southern, desert part of the country. The commercial scale facility will be connected to a PV system and will be used for behind-the-meter services.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The Tasmanian government is taking legal action against the owners of the Basslink Interconnector, seeking to recover more than $70 million owed because of a lengthy outage six years ago.

A number of Australian battery material recovery projects got off the ground this week, including the completion of Western Australian outfit Neometal’s battery recycling demonstration plant, a Queensland-Japanese joint venture studying the extraction of cobalt from copper tailings as well as the funding of Sydney-based startup Novalith.

Compressed hydrogen ship maker Global Energy Ventures will develop a 2.8 GW green hydrogen export project on the Tiwi Islands, off the coast of the Northern Territory. It says the project will demonstrate the simplicity and efficiency of compressed hydrogen for Asia-Pacific supply chains, and will of course use a fleet of its own hydrogen-powered and hydrogen carrying 430-tonne ships.