Opinion & Analysis

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the global PV supply chain. China, the largest manufacturing hub for solar products, has postponed factory openings in many regions, as it has been hit by logistical hiccups, staff shortages, and delivery delays. Manufacturers in some Chinese provinces are running under capacity, while those overseas are facing the same situation.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, cyber threats to critical infrastructure were listed as a top ten global threat and many experts believe that an attack on Australian energy infrastructure is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’. Here are my thoughts on how to get ahead of this challenge as the growth in distributed rooftop solar PV systems also expands the ‘surface area’ vulnerable to attack.

Resilience is measured by the ability to adapt to a changing environment. This includes the capacity to prepare for and reduce the impact caused by disruptive events and the ability to recover rapidly. How can we better plan to maintain continuous supply of energy during and after an incident?

Global demand for replacement inverters will likely grow by almost 40% to reach 8.7 GW in 2020, as a large and expanding installed base of aging solar PV installations drives deployment, writes Miguel De Jesus of IHS Markit.

Even a casual observer of the political debate over climate change in Australia would almost have whiplash from the abrupt turn from low-key climate denialism to focus on resilience and adaptation in the face of climate catastrophes.

After a leisurely break over the holiday period, I have returned to my desk to get right back into the analysis of what I think will be a pretty exciting year for the NEM. Connection difficulties, commissioning delays and stubbornly high storage costs point to uncertainty on the supply side, while strong rooftop uptake continues to whittle out daytime operational demand.

The breadth and depth of detail in the GSD2019 (to be released today) reveals any number of important insights into the supply side of the NEM. One theme that stood out for me as I reviewed the data was the set of challenges facing the NEM’s most recent crop of new entrant generators – utility-scale solar farms – as they come to grips with the messy reality of the electricity market.

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 has made great strides in terms of investment into renewables, yet despite the spend, we are still faced with an ageing grid and a growing number of coal power plant closures, that lack clear and sustainable replacements.

Kicking off from the last quarter of 2016 Australia has experienced an amazing boom in renewable energy across both rooftop solar and utility-scale projects. Over the space of just five years Australia will have shifted from just 15% of our power from renewable energy (in 2016) to 30% by 2021.