Technology

Queensland’s worst power outage in decades has triggered calls for the introduction of more utility scale batteries capable of providing security for the state’s electricity network.

The pilot project is combining hydrogen fuel cell generators with a combined capacity of 500 kW with a 570 kW solar array and 1.1 MWh of lithium-ion batteries. It is planned to come online in the spring of 2022.

A new program has launched on the New South Wales south coast enabling solar generated on residential rooftops to be consumed locally by hot water systems through smart meters alone, helping manage the growing problem of variable electricity in the grid without requiring new infrastructure.

India’s Aegeus Technologies has developed an autonomous, water-free cleaning bot for rooftop solar installations. The bot weighs 5 kg (with battery) and can be operated remotely through a web-based app. It uses an air wash technology to clean the panels, ensuring no need for water or any harmful chemicals.

U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab has devised a tool to allow users to compare pricing trends across locations, regions, and timeframes, down to the nodal level.

ARENA and green-thumb Angus Taylor have launched a project to demonstrate that renewable energy can be cost competitive compared to fossil-fuel use in the processing of alumina — providing an incentive for one of Australia’s biggest industries to adopt this technology and offer low-carbon alumina to the world market.

Got a startup that’s contributing to the energy transition, to advancing development of “smart” cities, to decarbonisation of agriculture or mines? The ATC has a track record for scaling up promising tech and has just extended its entry deadline to June 7. Opportunity knocks.

Even as solar researchers strive to squeeze every drop of efficiency from the industry-ruling silicon solar-cell technology, scientists are constantly questing for the next, cheaper, more efficient way of harvesting the sun’s energy to power human endeavours. The appetite for accelerating 2D perovskite solar cell development has just been piqued!

In a huge data-crunching project designed to inform rooftop solar-export policy and regulations, UNSW technical and social researchers delve into the costs and effectiveness of inverter standards.

The devil is in the details, as they say, and when it comes to the next generation of mass-produced, high-efficiency PV cells, silver costs may be devilishly hard to reduce. Making things worse, prices for the precious metal are now heading in the wrong direction.