Sustainability

With headlines dominated by spiking electricity prices and energy security, the demand for off grid solutions in Australia is booming. “It’s starting to make financial sense, that’s significant,” Matt Miller, the marketing manager for Victorian company Commodore tells pv magazine Australia.

As community opposition to overhead transmission line grows, the Victoria-based Energy Grid Alliance has released a report imploring the energy industry to better understand why the phenomenon is gaining momentum – positing the ‘talk to them early and pay them more’ approach will only further decay the situation. Instead, the group says real attention needs to be paid to social license and ensuring environmental and socioeconomic impacts of chosen transmission corridors are considered from the get-go.

Victoria’s coal-fired power plants would be progressively shut down by the end of the decade under a climate bill to be introduced to state parliament this week.

Energy ministers from around the country have powered up Australia’s shift from coal and gas to a renewables-based grid with a national agreement to enshrine emissions reductions objectives into laws governing the nation’s energy market.

Local government associations continue to drive Australia’s shift towards renewable energy with councils around the country unveiling a series of clean energy projects, ranging from solar PV and storage installs, to solar panel recycling initiatives and long-term power purchase agreements.

An international group of researchers from 15 universities has said that there is growing consensus among scientists that an energy system based on 100% renewables could be achieved cost effectively by 2050.

The owner of Australia’s biggest coal-fired generator has added another large-scale solar PV project to its renewable energy portfolio with the acquisition of the 60 MW Yanco Solar Farm being developed in the New South Wales Riverina region.

Miner Rio Tinto has received offers to build more than 4 GW of solar and wind capacity after the company sought proposals to help it cut carbon emissions at its Queensland operations.

New research from Stanford University researcher Mark Jacobson outlines how 145 countries could meet 100% of their business-as-usual energy needs with wind, water, solar and energy storage. The study finds that in all the countries considered, lower-cost energy and other benefits mean the required investment for transition is paid off within six years. The study also estimates that worldwide, such a transition would create 28 million more jobs than it lost.

Fourth-generation Victorian dairy farmers this week commissioned their 250kW rooftop solar system coupled with 520 kWh of battery storage from Australian company Energy Renaissance. The couple are forecast to save at least $70,000 annually with the system, cutting their grid reliance by 95% and hopefully inspiring neighbouring farms.