Australia

The Western Australian government-owned utility is continuing the rollout of its landmark off-grid program for regional properties looking to reduce or entirely remove the need for new poles and wires.

The deal will see the U.S. technology company supply its smart microinverters as part of an RACV initiative to enhance its current residential and commercial solar offerings.

The ARC Research Hub for Integrated Energy Storage Solutions has a broad research mandate as it looks for innovative energy storage solutions for the energy transition, but some of the nation’s finest minds are now working on them together.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, cyber threats to critical infrastructure were listed as a top ten global threat and many experts believe that an attack on Australian energy infrastructure is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’. Here are my thoughts on how to get ahead of this challenge as the growth in distributed rooftop solar PV systems also expands the ‘surface area’ vulnerable to attack.

Many more renewable generators than originally thought are in a holding pattern as a result of oscillation problems in the weak-grid, high-resource area known as the West Murray. State Governments, AEMO and the renewables industry have hunkered down to find solutions that will also find application elsewhere in the grid as connection fever mounts.

The debate now stewing in the Australian Parliament around the viability and cost of setting a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 is again proving a case of too little vision applied too late. A new forum casts all participants as “leaders” and as it seeks to accelerate emissions reduction opportunities today.

Resilience is measured by the ability to adapt to a changing environment. This includes the capacity to prepare for and reduce the impact caused by disruptive events and the ability to recover rapidly. How can we better plan to maintain continuous supply of energy during and after an incident?

A report published by the Rocky Mountain Institute makes recommendations for rooftop PV in regions affected by high winds. The study draws on the knowledge of structural engineers asked to analyze 25 solar systems across five Caribbean islands after they were hit by major hurricanes in 2017 and last year.

Australia’s biggest power producer AGL and copper miner Hillgrove Resources have agreed to abandon the ambitious pumped hydro project at an old mine pit in South Australia. No longer bound by the project restriction, the owner intends to step up mining and drilling activities at the site.

A world-class research and development hub planned for Cairns will be home to a supercomputer that will be used to simulate and model intricate networks in order to enable renewable energy and energy storage to form a greater part of microgrids and isolated systems for remote communities.