Sustainability

Atlassian Co-Founder, Scott Farquhar, says the company’s new headquarters in Sydney’s planned tech precinct will host thousands of workers and embody “the best new ideas”, including a solar-energy-generating facade — inspiration for a post-COVID, yet still warming world.

“Accelerating the uptake of renewable energy for the industrial sector is a critical part in Australia meeting its long-term emissions reductions commitments,” said ARENA CEO Darren Miller at the announcement of $300,000 funding to support a collaborative industrial transition initiative.

Many charities might find it a stretch to allocate the capital for their organisations to become solar powered, but Australian startup Allume Energy, with the help of funding from ARENA, is set to test an everyone’s-a-winner solution.

La Trobe University is well on its way to achieving its ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2029 goal thanks to 7,500 solar panels installed by Solgen Energy Group at its Bundoora campus in Melbourne’s north. VIC Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the feat demonstrated what could be achieved with leadership, clear targets, and renewable energy.

Thanks to the Covid-19 many of us find ourselves in lockdown with little reprieve other than a morning potter or an evening stroll. In Goulburn, thanks to what is being called Australia’s largest solar lighting installation, locals can now more easily walk and cycle their way to the salutary effects of a daily jaunt.

Hesta, a leading industry superannuation fund trusted by 860,000 Australians, has joined a host of other major investment firms nationwide calling on the Federal Government to encourage large-scale renewable investment by setting an emissions target and cleaning up its strategy.

New economic modelling from Accenture’s AlphaBeta has found 76,000 clean jobs just waiting to be created over the next three years if a green recovery from the twin recoveries from the Black Summer Bushfires and Covid-19 were implemented. The Plan, commissioned by the Climate Council, breaks down potential jobs in the hardest hit regions and occupations.

A 50 MW solar farm at a vacant site in Karrabin is on the verge of construction after Ipswich City Council approved the project’s Materials Change of Use application. Ipswich may have once been Queensland’s ‘cradle of coal mining’ but solar is a sure sign of growing up.

SA Water’s highly ambitious $300 million solar uptake is proving a golden goose as a partnership with Succession Ecology to revegetate almost a tonne of native seedlings under large-scale solar arrays proves a win-win. The ground-mounted modules mean native vegetation can return to formerly agricultural land, and the native scrub itself protects PV panels from soiling.

Logan City Council has passed the 1 MW milestone of solar capacity on Council-owned buildings after the completion of a 100 kW install atop Logan North Aquatic Centre. The Council has plans to more than double that mark in the next year alone, however, some planned installations may fall victim to Covid-19 inspired cutbacks.