Markets & Policy

Australian and Japanese trade ministers met in Melbourne last week to sign a joint statement of cooperation. The agreement and collaboration between the two nations hopes to affirm Australia’s potential as a major exporter of hydrogen, with Japan as a key recipient.

Power generation statistics released by the National Energy Administration appear to confirm the nation added 12 GW of solar last month. China also deployed another 41 GW of polluting coal-fired power plants last year.

In recent decades Noosa has gone from hip-replacements to hip and trendy, and nowhere does it have its finger more on the pulse than its ambitious climate and energy goals. Said ambitions will now see Noosa host the Transforming Australia 2020 Summit run by the Cities Power Partnership.

Behind Blackrock’s grand exit from coal: Global capital flight from thermal coal and the coal-fired power sector is already at a canter in 2020.

Australia’s utility-scale renewable energy sector is set for a record year with 3.6 GW of projects expected to complete commissioning in 2020, Rystad Energy finds. This comprises 1.96 GW in utility PV projects and 1.57 GW in wind developments, with the remaining 0.1 GW coming from batteries.

Investment in Australian renewable energy capacity fell 40% in 2019 down from record-breaking levels seen in the year before, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Spending on large-scale renewables dropped dramatically due to network woes and long-term policy uncertainty but was ameliorated by the rooftop solar segment’s record growth.

The Australian government has opened the Critical Minerals Facilitation Office as it looks to develop a large-scale critical mineral industry to stably supply the world the critical minerals needed for batteries, solar panels, and smartphones.

A study from Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology has predicted solar and other renewables can provide a global energy jobs revolution – just as four European operations revealed recent struggles.

Australia has seen the first decline in annual emissions since 2015 thanks to record levels of renewable energy but if continued at the present rate the 2030 Paris target would be met some 68 years after the deadline, according to Ndevr Environmental.

It’s a minor concern compared to the tragic loss of life, livelihoods and biodiversity caused by the bushfires still ravaging parts of Australia, but reduced output by PV systems due to smoke haze is an unwelcome bi-product of blazes that have burned at a scale and ferocity never seen before.