Technology

Queensland-based energy tech company AnteoTech has secured almost $4 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to help fast-track the development of its silicon-dominant lithium-ion battery anode technology.

Australian battery tech company Li-S Energy has announced a major improvement in the performance of its lithium-sulphur battery technology with its latest iteration achieving an energy density close to 500 Wh per kilogram.

The Spanish company said that its new tracker “is designed for maximum adaptability to any terrain” and is compatible with all PV modules.

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.

The Chinese manufacturer said the result was confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.

With hailstorms in Australia and the United States severely damaging solar arrays – including “golf-ball sized” hail at the 350 MW Fighting Jays project in Texas in March 2024 – insurers are raising premiums and reducing or canceling hail coverage. Everoze Partner Simon Mason discusses the challenges the industry faces in minimising its hail risk exposure.

Researchers from Monash and the University of Queensland have developed a nanofiltration technology to extract lithium from low-grade saltwater brines with high magnesium content. “Our technology achieves 90 percent lithium recovery, nearly double the performance of traditional methods, while dramatically reducing the time required for extraction from years to mere weeks,” researcher Dr Zhikao Li said.

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.

China’s Longi Green Energy has set a new world record for crystalline silicon solar module efficiency with its independently developed hybrid passivated back contact (HPBC) 2.0 module, achieving a conversion efficiency of 25.4%, according to a certification report from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE).

A group of scientists conducted a literature review of almost a hundred fast maximum power point tracking algorithms. They extracted ten representative algorithms and showed which of them works best under different scenarios.