Grids & Integration

The preferred easement for the 240-kilometre Victorian section of the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West transmission line project has been released by Transmission Company Victoria.

Construction of the second stage 240 MW battery at Origin Energy’s Eraring Power Station located 120 kilometres north of Sydney and 40 kilometres south of Newcastle in New South Wales, has officially begun.

The federal government will tip more than $17 million into what it said will be Australia’s first commercial concentrated solar thermal heat plant, expanding the application of solar power beyond electricity to heat generation.

Labelled the “most difficult” in the world, Australia’s regulatory environment and grid connection process for new large-scale renewable energy generation and storage has also been lauded as the standard bearer for the global market.

While Australia continues to be a revelatory solar market internationally, it lost its place in the top 10 solar installers globally in 2023, the IEA PVPS team reports. According to Renate Egan, Executive Director for the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, it is the first time in 30 years Australia has dropped off that list. “What’s sad is that the rest of the world is now taking off and investing in solar and we’re falling behind,” she said at Melbourne’s All Energy on Thursday.

Singaporean authorities have granted conditional approval to SunCable’s flagship AustraliaAsia PowerLink, with SunCable’s interim CEO describing the win as a “vote of confidence in the commercial and technical viability of our project.”

The federal government has announced it will double the amount of storage projects being sought in the next found of tenders for its Capacity Investment Scheme, upping it from 2 GW / 8 GWh to 4 GW / 16 GWh. The solar and wind tenders have also been increased, moving from 4 GW to 6 GW.

Founder and former CEO of SwitchDin Dr Andrew Mears is launching his new venture, Tesseract ESS, at Melbourne’s All Energy today. The proposition expands on his previous technologies to deliver a ‘storage-as-a-service’ model focused on Australia’s C&I segment, providing battery and solar systems at $0 CAPEX to Australian farmers, manufacturers and other businesses. Pv magazine Australia spoke to Mears ahead of the launch.

The federal government has committed $5.4 million in funding to support the creation of a fully electrified community on the New South Wales south coast with the pilot project to provide crucial insights on the shape of Australia’s future energy system.

Ten large-scale solar farms planned for New Zealand’s North and South islands are among 22 renewable energy projects with a combined capacity of 3 GW that have been listed for inclusion in the government’s “one-stop shop” fast-track approvals process.