News

Historic meteorological data is typically used to assess solar farm yield and secure project finance, but with climate change beginning to affect every aspect of society, past weather data may no longer be a reliable guide. Everoze Partner Nastasia Pacaut looks at how PV projects can be future-proofed in a changing climate.

Commissioning of one of Australia’s first solar-powered utility scale vanadium flow batteries has commenced with developer Yadlamalka Energy confirming that construction of its $22 million Spencer Energy Project in South Australia is now complete.

Critical energy minerals company Vecco Group has celebrated the official opening of Australia’s first commercial-scale vanadium battery electrolyte manufacturing facility in Townsville by announcing it has secured a contract to provide Energy Queensland with the state’s first grid-scale vanadium flow battery.

A $20 million (USD 13.58 million) early works package for the CopperString transmission project that is forecast to unlock 6 GW of renewable energy resources and connect Queensland’s northwest to the national electricity grid has been awarded to CIMIC Group companies UGL and CPB Contractors.

The research group led by Professor Martin Green has published Version 62 of the solar cell efficiency tables. There are 21 new results reported in the new version, a record number for the Tables.

In the second interview of a series held at Intersolar 2023, pv magazine spoke with Karen Tang, Director – Editorial Lead Europe at Singapore-based market research company OPIS, about current price trends in the industry. She said solar panels may soon be bought at an average of USD 0.185/W but she also revealed that offers under USD 0.15/W are now becoming more frequent. Furthermore, Tang said prices may continue to drop in the future, with the bottom line being difficult to determine. Much will depend on the actual manufacturing capacity we will see coming online, which may not match the huge number of recent announcements released by module producers.

New South Wales transmission network operator Transgrid plans to spend $16.5 billion (USD 11.22 billion) to grow the state’s power system over the next decade to ensure the “secure operation” of the grid at up to 100% instantaneous renewables.

The Australian government has backed the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to lead the transformation of the nation’s energy grid infrastructure by signing off on a $20.5 billion (USD 13.94 billion) increase in investment capital for the federal government-owned ‘green bank.’

Australian retailing major Officeworks has flicked the switch on its first behind-the-meter rooftop solar and battery energy storage system as it works towards using only renewable electricity to power operations by 2025 as part of its ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.

The International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) has published a report to help the solar industry to choose appropriate surface radiation models and data providers based on location and application requirements.