Asia

The Queensland government has reaffirmed that Singapore-headquartered Keppel Infrastructure has joined the consortium of Australian and Japanese energy companies seeking to develop a 3 GW renewable hydrogen project near Gladstone on the central Queensland coast.

Japanese oil and gas giant Inpex has struck a deal to buy 50% of Italian utilities giant Enel Group’s Australian renewable energy platform, Enel Green Power Australia, handing it joint control of a solar farms portfolio that includes 254 MW of installed capacity and another 170 MW of renewables under construction.

Resources giant Rio Tinto will team with Japanese industrial heavyweight Sumitomo Corporation to build a green hydrogen production plant on Queensland’s central coast as part of a $111 million (USD 74.64 million) ‘world first’ project which aims to lower carbon emissions from the alumina refining process.

An international consortium planning to build a 50 GW renewable energy hub in Australia’s southwest has signed an early agreement with Korea’s largest electricity utility to advance the development of what would be one of the world’s largest green hydrogen production facilities.

The America-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released the findings of a study that assessed the technical potential for floating PV and underlined its co-benefits in environmental protection and food security.

Australia and Indonesia are forging closer economic ties built on what each country can offer the other in the transition to clean energy. Indonesia is emerging as a maker of electric vehicles and the batteries that power them. Australia has the lithium reserves Indonesia needs to do this.

China’s Sinopec has switched on the world’s largest solar-to-hydrogen project in Xinjiang, while India has unveiled a new plan to incentivize green hydrogen and electrolyzer production.

Huang Haiyan, chief sustainability officer for Astronergy, spoke with pv magazine at the recent SNEC trade show in Shanghai about the company’s new TOPCon PV module line and its broader expansion plans.

Sofar, a China-based inverter and battery manufacturer, has introduced a new series of microinverters for balcony solar arrays and rooftop PV systems. They have a 97.5% efficiency rating and offer between 500 VA and 2,400 VA of rated power.

Australian renewable energy developer Genex Power has entered into agreements with Japanese electric utility J-Power to receive a multi-million-dollar funding package that will support the delivery of its 2 GWh pumped hydro project in northern Queensland and the development of the 2 GW Bulli Creek solar and battery project in the state’s southeast.