Strategic Alliances

The Northern Beaches Council in Sydney is seeking expressions of interest from organisations able to set and and run a group Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), for its local businesses. The aim is to aggregate local businesses to collectively scale up their PPA buying power and cut time, complexity and associated costs.

Developer Energy Estate has signed a deal with Abergeldie Complex Infrastructure, which has designed vertical manmade caverns for hydrogen storage. Energy Estate co-founder Simon Currie says the partnership is about shoring up projects like its proposed 1.6 GW Hunter Hydrogen Network.

Australian electricity retailer Flow Power has officially entered the Queensland market, inking an offtake deal with German-owned renewable energy developer Wirsol Energy for 30 MW of clean electricity generated at the 89 MW Clermont Solar Farm.

Australian green hydrogen developer Fortescue Future Industries and Italian gas and electricity giant Enel are set to partner on making green hydrogen cost-competitive with fossil fuel alternatives this decade.

Western Australia’s largest virtual power plant, the government-support Project Symphony, is live. The project is particularly noteworthy for its introduction of new markets to reward different services and its use of Dynamic Operating Envelopes.

“Australia’s critical minerals are at the centre of an important moment in history which could dictate the shape of the world that we will live in for the next century,” federal resources minister Madeleine King told the Rare Earth Conference in Canberra. With the strategy to grow critical mineral supply chains between Australia and the US gaining momentum, this concept of “friendshoring” was in the spotlight at All Energy 2022.

Set to land on Australian shores in Dec. 2022, German solar panel manufacturer AE Solar has modified a panel to meet the continent’s particular stress factors, including our far higher temperatures, UV doses and humidity. “Since we think it’s a kind of localised, or environmentally adapted module, we think it can be a selling factor for this particular line,” AE Solar’s Head of R&D, Dr Hamed Hanifi, told pv magazine Australia during Melbourne’s All Energy conference last week.

While near neighbours, the electricity generation of the countries of Southeast Asia couldn’t be further apart. Indonesia burns locally mined coal, Malaysia has reserves of oil and gas, while populous Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, depend on fossil fuel imports. They could all benefit from increased solar imports, but higher grid capacities and interconnection are key for an opportunity to unlock the power of the sun.

Singapore-based Sun Cable, which is seeking to develop the giant Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) consisting of up to 20 GW of solar and 42 GWh of energy storage on a 12,000-hectare site in the Northern Territory, is forming a consortium to advance sustainable smart energy grids in Asia.

A looming energy storage shortfall has promoted renewed calls from the renewable energy industry for a national renewable energy storage scheme. The scheme would consist of a series of large-scale project tenders designed to unleash desperately needed investment.