Technology

Scientists at Princeton have found solar and wind energy offer the added environmental benefit of reducing water usage, by comparison with hydroelectric dams. Their findings, say the researchers, could have a positive impact on groundwater sustainability in drought-prone regions such as California, where they conducted a case study.

A result of a collaboration between global accounting and financial services firm KPMG, Canadian gas giant ATCO, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), H2City can be used to assess the costs and benefits of regional town or municipality switching to hydrogen.

Known for its blockchain-based peer-to-peer platform that allows energy trading between households, Power Ledger is now readying for the first large-scale commercial rollout of its technology in Australia. The Perth-based company has partnered with electricity wholesaler Powerclub to allow households to pool net solar and battery storage and act as a virtual power plant.

Brisbane-based Tritium is quickly becoming a world leader in EV charging technology as the company rapidly expands across Europe and the United States.

Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to 2°C, and as close as possible to 1.5°C. The bad news is that four years on the best that we can hope for is holding global increases to around 1.75°C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.

A team of scientists led by the University of Glasgow has discovered a more efficient method of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity which it says could almost double the amount of hydrogen produced per millivolt.

The Smart Energy Hub can operate in electrolysis mode to store renewable energy as hydrogen, or in fuel cell mode to produce electricity and heat from previously produced hydrogen or methane. Its developers are the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and start-up Sylfen.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) expects to see further declines in Marginal Loss Factors (MLFs) next financial year on a number of grid-scale PV projects, primarily in south-west News South Wales and north-west Victoria.

The second stage of the first grid-scale solar plant in Australia, the Greenough River Solar Farm, will deploy German power electronics, with SMA announcing it has picked up a contract to supply the 30 MW development.

It may come as a volt from the blue, but solar PV still has enormous unexplored potential. With the help of a globally renowned startup accelerator, a team from UNSW’s famous photovoltaics division is taking solar generation out of the ‘burbs and into the urban jungle.