Policy

The world’s largest solar PV and battery energy storage project has locked in renewed political support with the Northern Territory government confirming it will introduce special legislation into parliament this week that will facilitate the development of the giga-scale Australia-Asia PowerLink project.

This week has been disastrous for Australia’s carbon market, with cascading criticisms of the federal government’s Emissions Reduction Fund coming to light, including the former chair of its integrity commission labelling it an “environmental and taxpayer fraud” and its own participants publishing an open letter to the minister saying its changes are jeopardising Australia’s pathway to net zero.

The extensive power outages experienced in Western Australia last Christmas were a result of extreme weather rather than human failure, an independent review has found. The report’s author, AEMC’s Michelle Shepherd, notes such instances will likely become increasingly frequent with climate change.

New Zealand’s federal government has opened the final funding round in its NZ$14 million (AU$13 million) Māori Housing Renewable Energy Fund, open to small and larger-scale projects.

A report published by IRENA hints the world’s politicians will have to get to work immediately to avoid another generation of fossil fuel-fired hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol plants being set up to run into the second half of the century.

Australia’s largest energy retailer Origin Energy has ramped up plans for the delivery of large-scale renewable energy projects as it prepares to replace the capacity set to be withdrawn from the grid with the impending closure of the nation’s biggest coal-fired power station.

Ratings agency ICRA has estimated Indian green hydrogen will cost that much if produced at sites featuring clean energy generation capacity and electrolysers. That is between US$0.5–$1 per kilogram cheaper than in locations where the two systems are not co-located, with the saving possible due to a reduction in open-access, intra-state grid charges.

Over the weekend, Angus Taylor effectively handed over billions to carbon credit aggregation companies born of the increased price of Australia’s carbon credits – without any clear reasoning. This “weird” decision, as Bruce Mountain called it, stumped many but the Australia Institute told pv magazine Australia it’s just one of many moves the Morrison government has made to increase the supply of carbon credits and depress their price – a strategy which seems curiously misaligned with the scheme’s stated purpose of reducing emissions.

With Australia’s unstoppable clean energy transition picking up pace, the question of jobs and how to reskill fossil fuel workforces is again at centre stage. Over the weekend, the Victorian government announced an initiative to encourage women to enter the male-dominated industry, while the federal government announced it would begin delivering reports on energy sector jobs to avoid skills shortages.

Risen Energy has extended the product warranty on its Australian residential modules from 15 to 25 years. The news comes just weeks after SunPower Maxeon pushed the Australian market by increasing its new warranties to 40 years.