Technology

After the end of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, the 15 solar power plants installed on the roofs of buildings in the athletes’ village will be integrated into a collective self-consumption operation once the future residents of the district have taken possession of the premises.

Libra Energy has unveiled its first major Australian renewables project, announcing plans to build an 850 MW / 3,400 MWh battery energy storage system in southeast Queensland to help soak up excess solar energy and stabilise the grid supply and demand during peak hours.

Access to rooftop solar in Western Australia has received a boost with state-owned energy provider Horizon Power expanding the reach of an internet-connected energy management project that promises to help balance energy flows on regional microgrids.

Scientists in Europe have created an after-market cooling solution that can be fitted to existing standard PV modules. The system is based on a water chamber placed at the backside of the module and can reportedly provide a net electrical energy gain of more than 9%.

A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales is confident it can get silicon solar cells to a power conversion efficiency above 30% by integrating a process that splits particles of light, or photons, into two smaller energy chunks.

Researchers in Malaysia have proposed a new approach to identify the optimal power sizing ratio to balance PV energy capture with inverter costs. The calibrated model is said to accurately reflect the relationship between inverter efficiency and real-world system behavior.

As bifacial modules proliferate, estimations of albedo are becoming more important and with developers not prepared to install weather stations to assess solar resource, a popular option has become third-party, on-site measurements over periods as short as a day. Is this an acceptable compromise between costly on-site measuring and less accurate satellite data? Everoze’s Stefan Mau discusses the potential benefits and limitations of this approach.

Mining giant Fortescue Metals Group has begun commissioning its 100 MW solar farm at the North Star Junction south of Port Hedland in Western Australia, as the company progresses toward a target of real zero by 2030.

Multiple factors affect lifespan of a residential battery energy storage system. We examine the life of batteries in Part 3 of our series.

A new report published by the CSIRO says Australia’s research into solar recycling is second in the world, outside China, but suggests the establishment of mid-stream activities such as the production of metallurgical silicon and polysilicon have big potential.