Australia

Extreme weather is a growing risk to solar farms. Future-proofing through advanced technologies, leveraging data from novel sources, and by building both collaboration and acceptance of risk is vital, but rarely achieved today for a number of reasons. Insurers, lenders, developers, contractors and manufacturers come together here to discuss solutions to the intractable problem of weather risk.

British renewables developer Pacific Green Technologies has joined the growing number of foreign companies looking to capitalise on Australia’s energy transition, announcing plans to build a 500 MW/1,500 MWh battery energy storage system in South Australia.

Danish investment group Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has tapped Canadian PV and battery manufacturing heavyweight Canadian Solar to provide the energy storage solution for the first of the multiple large-scale battery projects it has planned for Australia.

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen has announced a major expansion of the Commonwealth-funded Capacity Investment Scheme that will now target 32 GW of renewable generation and storage capacity to support the nation’s clean energy transition.

University of New South Wales academic Aihua Wang is the first female recipient of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth Prize (QEPrize) for Engineering, after sharing the 2023 award with Andrew Blakers, Martin Green, and her husband Jianhua Zhao for their work developing the passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) solar cell. pv magazine caught up with her to ask about the achievement.

Akaysha Energy has expanded the scope of its Victorian Elaine battery from 800 MWh to 1244 MWh, growing the project’s capacity more than 50% due to its long duration capability of four hours, pv magazine Australia has been told.

Cimic Group subsidiary Pacific Partnerships has this week energised its 130 MW (DC) Glenrowan solar farm in northern Victoria. Construction on the solar farm began just one year ago, Cimic noted.

Superannuation fund Rest has announced it will invest $1 billion (655 million) into Australian-owned renewable energy investor and developer, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners. The fund has a particular eye to green data storage centres.

More than 1 GW of firmed storage capacity is set to be delivered by the six winning projects from the New South Wales (NSW) tender combining state and federal schemes. Akaysha Energy’s 415 MW / 1660 MWh battery in Wellington and AGL’s 500 MW / 1000 MWh Liddell battery are the round’s two biggest projects.

Australian hydrogen project developer Abel Energy has selected UK firm Johnson Matthey and US company SunGas Renewables in the design of its flagship green hydrogen and methanol project at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania.