Markets & Policy

Thirteen of Victoria’s water corporations have partnered to buy clean energy from the Kiamal Solar Farm in north-west Victoria, at a much cheaper rate than would be possible individually.

With the appointment of UGL, publicly-listed developer Genex Power has finalized a project delivery team for the 50 MW Jemalong Solar Farm.

Renewables are the lowest cost, sustainable solution for Australia’s energy policy crisis and potentially one of Australia’s largest export industries of the future.

Climate change featured as an important, if not decisive, battleground issue in both the recent Victorian and New South Wales State elections. After the Easter break, reports of record high voter enrolments, particularly among young people, indicates that climate change may firm as a key federal election issue as May 18 draws nearer.  

Following Carnegie Clean Energy’s voluntary administration, the administrators have revealed the bids its solar microgrid arm managed to attract. Meanwhile, a plan to restructure the company’s core wave power business has been approved by creditors, along with a decision to liquidate the EMC business.

Coming hot on the heels of major reports and a heated public debate about electric vehicles, a poll commissioned by the Climate Council confirms Australians believe electric cars are the future. Another poll, by The Australia Institute, has 50% of Australian voters supporting all car sales being electric by 2025.

Rooftop solar remained the biggest employer in the Australian renewable energy sector last financial year, but it was large-scale solar PV that stole the limelight as it emerged as the second largest contributor of direct full-time jobs.

The world had more than half a terawatt of PV generation capacity at the end of last year as emerging solar markets picked up the slack caused by Beijing’s subsidy about-turn to the tune of a 20% rise in installations outside China.

In a major shift towards owning renewable energy generation assets, electricity network infrastructure owner Spark Infrastructure has fully acquired the 120 MW Bomen Solar Farm in NSW. The project has inked a power purchase agreement with Westpac, which marks a big step towards its goal of sourcing 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

The state grid operator reported breaking 11 GW of instantaneous power from large scale solar on Saturday at 1.50pm. Just 20 minutes earlier, the CAISO grid was exporting a record 1.5 GW of electricity, and last Wednesday it hit 93% clean electricity for a moment.