Australia

The Australian Energy Market Commmission has released new rules giving consumers more value from and control over their energy use while retailers get more options to bill individual consumer energy resources, such as electric vehicles.

A rapid uptake of consumer and distribution energy resources in Australia sets the stage for their role in the transition but if legacy operating systems don’t keep up the pace they risk falling short of delivering their potential, a new report finds.

A Melbourne startup has unlocked new potential to cut environmental and economic costs of lithium extraction and processing by delivering a proof of concept that produces battery grade lithium hydroxide using no water or chemicals and minimal energy.

Energy giant AGL has stepped up its transition away from coal and gas, adding a development pipeline of more than 8 GW of large-scale solar and battery energy storage projects to its portfolio with the acquisition of two Australian renewable energy developers.

Finland-headquartered technology company Wärtsilä Energy has launched an upgrade of its GEMS digital energy platform, which the company says can transform the way GWh-scale battery energy storage projects are managed in Australia.

Singapore-headquartered clean energy investor Equis plans to begin building a four-hour duration battery in Queensland later this year as it pushes ahead with the development of a portfolio of 17 battery projects with a combined capacity of 4.4 GW across Australia.

Australia’s 2030 clean energy targets are drawing ever closer, but based on recent modelling, we’re losing grasp of our 82% renewables goal. With this target less than six years away, the industry remains fixated on debating the pros and cons of high-profile renewable projects. These debates however distract from the energy industry’s most pressing issue.

A proposal to build a renewable energy hydrogen project including 26 GW of solar and wind capacity in Western Australia’s Pilbara region is to benefit from a streamlined approvals process after it was awarded major project status by the federal government.

Uptake of Victorian rooftop solar rebates sees five million individual solar panels installed across the state, doubling the output of the brown coal Yallourn power station to generate 2 GW of power to date.

Construction has commenced on a 300 MW / 1,200 MWh battery energy storage system being built alongside the coal-fired Stanwell Power Station in central Queensland as the state government looks to scale up energy storage capacity to support the transition to renewables.