Sustainability

The famous Melbourne Cricket Ground is claiming an Australian first with energy retailer EnergyAustralia saying the iconic sports ground in the Victorian capital is the first major stadium in the nation to be run entirely on 100% renewable power.

Queensland will soon be home to two solar recycling and materials recovery plants after Solar Recovery Corporation announced its partnership with La Mia Energia, an Italian consortium which has developed a panel recycling process it claims can recover up to 99% of raw materials. The partnering companies are planning to expand across Australia in the next two years.

AGL has this morning rejected an “unsolicited” $8 billion takeover bid from software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures and Canadian fund manager Brookfield. Cannon-Brookes described the consortium as “disappointed” by AGL’s decision, saying it will continue to “move forward” with the bid which would dramatically accelerate coal retirements in Australia.

The wide-open spaces of the Australian outback make it ripe for solar development, but doing so without the true inclusion of Indigenous communities may repeat the mistakes made by resource extraction companies in the past. However, Indigenous-led companies and an innovative new initiative are looking to put power and ownership into the hands of the land’s traditional owners, reports pv magazine Australia’s Bella Peacock.

French start-up Rosi Solar has developed an industrial solution claimed to be capable of recovering high purity silicon, silver and copper contained in end-of-life PV modules. The company’s technology is based on a pyrolysis process that makes it possible to isolate the different metals from the cells.

Australia’s first national battery recycling scheme, B-cycle, launched today giving Australians the opportunity to drop their spent household batteries at a collections bins in supermarkets, stores and community clubs across the country. 

Renewable energy production reached record highs in Australia in 2021 with new data from the Climate Council revealing clean technologies including rooftop solar and utility scale PV supplied five times more power into the nation’s largest electricity grid than gas.

A group of New South Wales local councils have banded together to secure a power procurement agreement with solar-focused electricity retailer Mojo Power that they say will allow them to satisfy the electricity demands of their major infrastructure with 100% renewable energy while providing a path for participants to reduce their overall emissions.

Australian energy major AGL has fast-tracked the closures of its two biggest coal-fired power plants by several years as it pushes ahead with plans to demerge in response to the ongoing market shift towards renewable sources of electricity.

Australia’s electricity retailers have been ranked from best to worst in terms of green credentials, igniting calls for retailers to make emissions information public and transparent.