Australia

Gold mining company Wiluna Mining Corp has started its move to renewables, installing a 2 MW battery to replace diesel generators with plans to integrate solar, wind or pumped storage options in the coming years.

Energy giant AGL has signed a memorandum of understanding with Finnish technology company Wärtsilä, to develop large-scale hybrid energy systems for AGL’s commercial and industrial customers.

Pandemic uncertainties have concentrated key solar players and “heightened competition for ‘survival of the fittest'”, says JinkoSolar Chairman and CEO Xiande Li. The company’s latest figures show it is well placed in Australia and in the global arena.

The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines … battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice says the hard evidence exposed in a new paper by the Clean Energy Council.

A human hair derivative has been found to protect, stabilise and enhance the performance of perovskite solar cells.

Australia’s solar and wind generation surged in March, according to Rystad Energy’s latest Watts Generating report, and perhaps most importantly a new wave of solar PV — primarily in energy-hungry NSW — is in the commissioning phase to come fully online in coming months.

Call it “latent energy” – Australia’s renewable resources are expected to help some of the world’s greatest polluters to reach their net-zero emissions targets, writes Natalie Filatoff, senior editor at pv magazine Australia.

Giant PV and wind projects are taking shape in Australia’s north, with the aim of supplying Asia with the clean energy it needs for decades to come. The Asian Renewable Energy Hub is one such project, as it targets green hydrogen production at a cost of $1.50/kg. Sacha Thacker, chief strategy officer at InterContinental Energy – one of the companies trying to the get the ambitious initiative off the ground – says that while the scale of projects today boggles the mind, the coming demand is more boggling still.

Queensland-based community group Solar Citizens has described as long overdue reports the State Government is considering a new pumped hydro facility near Gympie which would generate renewable energy to service the burgeoning Sunshine Coast region.

Concerned that a lack of understanding in the community is hindering the uptake of rooftop solar, a New South Wales local council has struck an agreement with the Australian Energy Foundation in a bid to demystify solar PV and battery energy storage systems.