Technology

Queensland is in line for its first community-scale battery to be installed on Townsville’s outskirts because of the high number of rooftop solar systems and close proximity to electricity infrastructure. The energy storage system should be operating by the end of the year.

As scorching heatwave drove up air conditioning power demand, faults at coal-fired power plants were directly responsible for blackouts across Victoria and South Australia. Extreme weather is debunking arguments for new fossil fuel generation, and signaling Australia’s energy security lies in renewables.

Bifacial solar panel performance has become such a hot pursuit this year that there are now at least four competing field test sites ramping up in the United States, each matching a different set of trackers and panels. The four test projects include DNV GL, Soltec, NREL and Sandia, and initial data is expected by late 2019, once a year’s data has been collected.

Transition to a world run entirely on clean energy – together with the implementation of natural climate solutions – is the only way to halt climate change and keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C, according to another significant study.

Another big battery has gone live in South Australia with the goal to contribute to energy security and reliability as a heatwave puts grid under pressure. The $30 million energy storage system is developed and owned by ElectraNet, as the first battery in the NEM to provide regulated network services and competitive market services.

Solar PV is boosting regional economies by providing cheaper electricity to off-grid or edge-of-grid communities and industries; soon it could power cheaper electric aviation services. In three years, Gold Coast company magniX expects to be selling a commercially available certified electric aircraft engine that will reduce the cost of flying light commercial aircraft by between 50% and 80% per operating hour.

At an energy storage fair in Dusseldorf, researchers will present a ceramic high-temperature battery. Storage costs using sodium-nickel-chloride battery cells are said to be 50% lower than those of lithium-ion.

The German car giant has created Elli, a subsidiary that will provide green power and charging solutions for the EV sector. Volkswagen – still haunted by the diesel emissions scandal – says it wants to make mobility sustainable.

The December meeting of the COAG Energy Council has grabbed headlines as NSW attempted to push for a zero-emissions policy only to be blocked by Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor. But, in a rare substantive outcome of the meeting, the energy ministers agreed to develop a national hydrogen strategy.

Engineers from the Australian National University, in collaboration with researchers from and the California Institute of Technology, have developed a way to combine silicon PV material with perovskites to achieve higher efficiencies and lower production costs.