New South Wales

Transmission network operator Transgrid is counting on technology developed in the United States to increase the capacity for the bidirectional flow of energy between Australia’s most populous states with works on the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector upgrade project nearing completion.

A pilot program across Sydney’s suburbs is seeking to prove a model its proponents hope will afford low income Australians access to solar at no upfront cost. The soon to be energised systems have been fitted on 64 disability homes and 90 community houses and will operate using a PPA model. “The poor don’t have the opportunity to put solar on their homes,” BlueCHP CEO, Charles Northcote tells pv magazine Australia. “They lose out because they have to pay all the grid charges… and this has not been addressed by the governments at all at this stage.”

New South Wales is seeking 2,500 GWh of annual generation and 600 MW of long-duration storage for its first tender, part of realising its ambitious NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap.

The New South Wales government has announced funding for five pumped hydro schemes spread across the state as it looks to deliver large-scale energy storage and firming capacity to allow for an increased uptake of renewable energy and to help plug the gap left by exiting coal-fired generation.

Haystacks, Australia’s first large-scale solar garden, to be built in the New South Wales Riverina region, has opened its solar “plots” to purchase for NSW households unable to install rooftop systems.

Australia’s first lithium-ion battery giga-factory is expected to begin operations soon with battery manufacturer Energy Renaissance announcing the successful completion of a $1.47 million pilot program designed to develop and test its manufacturing processes, systems and plant design.

The University of Wollongong professor behind the capillary-fed electrolyser breakthrough now being commercialised by Hysata has received grant funding to develop a cell for extracting pure hydrogen from methane mixtures.

The 225 MW Oxley Solar Farm, proposed in northern NSW, has agreed to pay $5.9 million as a “community benefit contribution.” The payment links to a recent list of demands from councils within the New England Renewable Energy Zone fed up large-scale projects deliver “significant financial and social costs with little tangible benefit to our regions.”

Renewable energy investors have proposed more than 40 new clean energy projects totalling more than 17 GW of generation and storage capacity for a coordinated renewable energy zone to be established in the Illawarra region on the New South Wales south coast.

The University of Technology Sydney has outlined details of a solar PV project it says demonstrates the potential of commercial and industrial rooftop space for use as solar farms with benefits beyond satisfying the host building’s energy needs.