News

French renewables developer Neoen’s massive 460 MWp solar farm in Queensland’s Western Downs region is rapidly advancing toward completion with state-owned network operator Powerlink confirming connection to the electricity grid is now complete.

Israel-based Augwind has built its first 250 kW/1 MWh compressed air storage system for the collective community of Yahel, in the southern, desert part of the country. The commercial scale facility will be connected to a PV system and will be used for behind-the-meter services.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The most striking feature of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s long-term emissions reduction plan outlined on Tuesday is not the long-telegraphed commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, or the promise of a $20 billion clean energy program (around 0.2% of national income annually).

One of Australia’s most remote settlements will soon be powered by renewable energy with Western Australia utility Horizon Power announcing construction is well progressed on a 700 kWac solar farm and a 1.78 MWh battery energy storage system being installed in Kalumburu.

The ability of grid-scale batteries to provide fast frequency response and synthetic inertia services to the National Energy Market will be put to the test with infrastructure service provider Lumea confirming commissioning of the 50 MW/75 MWh Wallgrove Grid Battery in Western Sydney has commenced.

The Tasmanian government is taking legal action against the owners of the Basslink Interconnector, seeking to recover more than $70 million owed because of a lengthy outage six years ago.

Some 90,000 individual solar panels will generate enough electricity to cover around 40% of the electricity used in two buildings for Google.

A number of Australian battery material recovery projects got off the ground this week, including the completion of Western Australian outfit Neometal’s battery recycling demonstration plant, a Queensland-Japanese joint venture studying the extraction of cobalt from copper tailings as well as the funding of Sydney-based startup Novalith.

Compressed hydrogen ship maker Global Energy Ventures will develop a 2.8 GW green hydrogen export project on the Tiwi Islands, off the coast of the Northern Territory. It says the project will demonstrate the simplicity and efficiency of compressed hydrogen for Asia-Pacific supply chains, and will of course use a fleet of its own hydrogen-powered and hydrogen carrying 430-tonne ships.