News

Energy provider AGL is forging ahead with plans to establish a 200 MW grid-scale battery at its Loy Yang power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, announcing it has lodged a planning application with the state government.

Construction has commenced on Australia’s largest hybrid solar and battery project with work beginning on the 720 MW New England Solar Farm near Uralla in northern New South Wales.

The first fully Australian designed and built electric bus has been rolled out for a two-week trial in Sydney as the New South Wales State Government pushes ahead with its plan to convert its entire bus fleet to electric by 2030.

Queensland government-owned electricity generator Stanwell Energy has committed to provide financial backing for a 50 MW hybrid solar thermal project planned for far western Queensland.

Over 2,000 MW – or around 55% – of South Australia’s firm supply capacity was unavailable on March 12, 2021, along with virtually all of its large-scale renewable supply (a further 1,800 MW or so) but the lights stayed on – just.

The World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia’s 2021 Renewable Superpower Scorecard has landed and shows how Australia’s states are putting in the hard yakka toward Australia’s renewable energy future while the Morrison Government lags behind.

Hydrogen transportation and submarine power lines have been compared by an international research team to find out which may be the cheapest option to connect for energy exchange regions separated by the sea. According to their findings, the hydrogen shipping alternative does not present very good prospects of applicability in the future, unless some disruptive technological breakthroughs are made. What makes compressed and liquified hydrogen ships still attractive, however, is that they can export energy almost anywhere, and that electrolysis and liquefaction plants are relatively easy to expand compared to marine cables.

Canadian Solar is pivoting towards energy storage and is preparing to IPO its manufacturing and Chinese solar project activity in China, under the CSI Solar operation, by July.

MinterEllison’s second annual ‘Renewables Investment Report’ finds that over the past year Australia has become a safe haven for investment… The maturity of its renewable opportunities seems to outweigh existing challenges. 

Battery capacity in the distributed and large-scale sectors continues to grow, according the annual reckoning of the SunWiz oracle. Although still a complex proposition, for homeowners, battery potential is beginning to be utilised in the hundreds of megawatts by governments and utilities, with some interesting side hustles in the mid-sized energy-storage category.