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Western Australian company Infinite Blue Energy has today announced it will purchase Northam solar farm, which sits an hour east of Perth. The acquisition will accelerate the company’s green hydrogen project as it aims to produce up to 4.4 tonnes of renewable hydrogen daily from next year.

A West Australian joint venture seeking to recover high-purity vanadium from a steel industry waste product using a carbon negative process has won the support of the European Union. “We’re not the first people to look at that project, but we’re the first people to look at it through a different lens and use this type of process,” Neometals’ General Manager of Commercial and Investor Relations, Jeremy McManus, told pv magazine Australia. The project, which is still in the early stages, is already been sought out by potential offtakers “desperate to secure green vanadium,” McManus added.

The deal between Fortescue Future Industries and E.ON, one of Europe’s largest energy network operators, will see the Australian company deliver five million tonnes of green hydrogen to Germany, the Netherlands and other European cities by 2030. “For us, it’s a minimum $50 billion expenditure. And that is one I welcome,” Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest said at press conference in Berlin overnight.

Renewables, climate change mitigation, the energy transition and Australia’s economic future were all big losers in Tuesday’s 2022-2023 federal budget. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s budget not only fails to provide direct funding for renewable energy projects but actually continues cuts to important institutions, and moreover proves the Morrison government’s belated 2050 net zero emissions plan was merely lip service prior to last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Australian fossil fuels giant Woodside will invest in US-based concentrated solar startup Heliogen, supporting its construction of a full-scale concentrated solar thermal demonstration plant in California ahead of a push into Australia.

The 70MW project is under development by Silicon Ranch and was launched through utility Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Green Invest program. Plus, pv magazine examines the work of “Solar Protocol” to bring attention to the fact that the internet is not as ethereal as it seems.

A standing committee has blocked federal energy minister Angus Taylor’s longstanding attempts to allow ARENA to fund fossil fuel projects, finding it illegal. The ruling came on the same day new analysis found the Morrison government’s fossil fuel subsidies increased 12% in FY22, costing taxpayers a total of $10.5 billion.

Traditionally one of the slower states to move away from fossil fuels, New South Wales is rapidly turning the tables – and the market is responding enthusiastically. The state government yesterday revealed it had received more than $4 billion worth of investment interest for its Hunter and Illawarra hydrogen hubs.

Western Australian company Global Energy Ventures has had several permissions granted for its 2.8GW green hydrogen export project on the Tiwi Islands, off the coast of the Northern Territory, including potentially increasing the acreage for its proposed solar farm.

Researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States discovered a degenerative effect in the creation of cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries that may have significant impacts on the performance of sodium-ion batteries.