Oceania

Mining giant BHP has taken another step on the path towards a renewable energy future, commissioning a 48.2 MW solar + storage hybrid power facility that will help power its Nickel West mining operations in regional Western Australia.

Petrol retailer Ampol will install more than 120 ultra-fast electric vehicle charging stations across its service station network after the Australian Renewable Energy Agency awarded it a share of almost $25 million in funding designed to drive the uptake of electric vehicles in Australia.

Standalone power system specialist Boundary Power has teamed up with Australian hydrogen technology company LAVO to investigate the potential application of its renewable hydrogen energy storage system in power solutions suitable for off-grid and edge-of-grid customers.

With rooftop PV and large-scale solar helping drive the penetration of renewables in Australia to record highs, the Energy Security Board has delivered its final advice on its redesign of the National Electricity Market but the some of the proposed reforms have drawn criticism from the renewable energy sector.

Australian electricity network owner Spark Infrastructure looks set to be sold off after it declared it will welcome other acquisition proposals if a $5.2 billion takeover bid launched by a North American investment consortium fails.

Mining giant Rio Tinto has tapped NRW Holdings to begin construction of a large-scale solar PV and battery energy storage system at the Anglo-Australian multinational’s $2.6 billion Gudai-Darri iron ore mine in Western Australia.

It’s a breakthrough so staggeringly simple the patent office needed convincing it counted as an invention. In what Professor Thomas Nann jokingly told pv magazine Australia basically equates to adding dishwashing liquid and oil to water, he and two of his former PhD students have unlocked the potential of water-based electrolytes for batteries, promising a solution that is cheaper, easier to manufacture and non-toxic. The startup plans to initially use the formula in supercapacitors before exploring it in conjunction with redox flow batteries.


The Queensland government has approved a new “state-of-the-art” renewable energy skills centre in Brisbane, which will provide training to prospective and current electrical workers to enter clean energy industries.

It’s no secret that extreme weather events are increasing, both in terms of severity and frequency. Australia is no exception. Despite historically seeing a relatively low occurrence of natural catastrophes, over the past 24 months the country has experienced cyclones, bushfires, large hail storms and numerous flooding events. This includes the recent floods in March of this year, in which New South Wales and parts of Queensland saw the worst flooding the region has experienced for six decades. Recent estimates predict the flooding to have caused between AU$919 million and AU$1.055 billion* in insured losses.

Solar panels the size of five cent pieces will be used to locate koalas and protect them from incoming bushfires as well as to care for the threatened species as their habitat regenerates.