News

Australian solar thermal specialist Vast Solar has announced plans to build a 20MW concentrated solar thermal power plant with more than eight hours of energy storage near Port Augusta in South Australia after securing financial backing from the federal government.

New figures reveal Australia’s clean energy transition can be transformative for the nation’s regional communities, not only providing low-cost renewable energy but also generating long-term employment opportunities.

Bearing witness during battery energy storage system manufacturing can reveal potential failure points and is crucial given the industry’s relative immaturity, argues Frédéric Dross, the vice-president of strategic development for quality assurance provider STS. And much can be learned from the early days of solar.

The device is described as a heat engine with no moving parts that is able to produce power from a heat source of between 1,900 to 2,400 C. This concept is known as thermal energy grid storage (TEGS) and consists of a low-cost, grid-scale storage technology that uses thermophotovoltaic cells to convert heat to electricity above 2,000 C.

The latest update to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) survey for solar workers and companies shows drastic outcomes for the industry if tariffs are imposed on countries under investigation.

Bromine-based flow batteries have the potential for high energy density in renewable energy storage. Their commercial adoption, however, remains challenging due to the cathode materials used for their construction. New research from China seeks to shed light on how to overcome these hurdles.

Origin Energy’s ambition to accelerate the growth of its renewable energy portfolio saw progress this week with the acquisition of the pre-construction 900 MW Yarrabee Solar Farm. Origin’s new renewable expansion strategy took shape after conceding in 2021 that its fossil fuel business was haemorrhaging under the strain of low renewables prices.

The Commonwealth government’s Critical Minerals Accelerator Initiative has awarded a $5.2 million grant to Canberra and Brisbane-based Lava Blue, a company seeking to improve the processes of valuable minerals from vanadium pentoxide processing waste, particularly high purity alumina.

France’s environmental agency Ademe has released a set of new guidelines that clearly define “agrivoltaics.”

Solar might be more efficient than nuclear energy to supply power for a six-person extended mission to Mars that will involve a 480-day stay on the planet’s surface before returning to Earth, according to new US research.