Policy

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has said there are no plans to change the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES), despite the ACCC recommendations to wind it down nine years early.

The NSW government has announced a $15 million solar scheme, which will put free solar PV systems on up to 3,400 low-income households provided they forgo their energy rebate.

For renewables to claim a more sizable share of the global energy mix, the adoption of energy storage would need to pick up pace and the rapidly increasing size of the EV fleet will offer a scalable way to ramp up such access, says Fitch Solutions.

According to a new scorecard released by the Climate Council, Tasmania, the ACT and SA are leading the nation in renewable energy adoption, while WA and the NT are lagging at the back of the pack.

According to the Gold Member Solar Report by EnergyTrend (Q3 2018), monocrystalline module prices have fallen almost 20% this year, while those for polycrystalline modules have dropped by more than 25%. Increased consolidation among manufacturers and developers is expected to occur in China and the global solar market, with more merger deals, plans for capacity reductions and even factory closures.

A snapshot of how politicians, scientists, institutions, industry, and civil servants have reacted to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released yesterday.

The Victorian government has given the green light to a utility-scale solar farm north of Shepparton and released draft planning guidelines for the development of large solar farm projects across the state.

As part of its electricity market reforms, the Northern Territory’s government has announced plans to review its solar feed-in tariffs in order to encourage the existing solar households to add battery storage. It has also greenlit the 25 MW Katherine solar park, the state’s largest solar PV farm to date.

A new report published by business consultants Frost & Sullivan expects around 90 GW of new solar installations by the end of 2018, in line with the predictions of other leading analysts. It further notes that PV remains the world leader in renewable energy capacity, and that markets are moving away from feed-in tariffs to make increasing use of auction models and private PPAs.

The All-Energy Australia 2018 exhibition & conference kicked off in Melbourne today. Safety of products and quality assurance was prominent in discussions at the country’s largest PV conference and trade show in its early hours. Big funding announcements at the opening plenary made headlines.