Oceania

Penfolds owner Treasure Wine Estates will install more than 9,500 solar panels across its Barossa and Karadoc wineries as the company seeks to become 100% renewable by 2024. To achieve that goal the company says it is preparing to install 29,000 solar panels across its vineyards worldwide, while also purchasing offsite renewables.

United States-based manufacturer Briggs & Stratton offers the storage solution with a 6kW inverter, a 4.9kWh battery, and a proprietary monitoring system.

About 1 million New South Wales households will be able to apply for an upfront payment of almost $3,000 to put towards a solar system or energy-saving upgrades to home appliances as part of a new state government program designed to reduce energy bills as power prices soar.

The International Renewable Energy Agency’s latest annual report on the progress towards the United Nation’s sustainable development goal seven estimates 670 million people will still lack electricity in 2030, and more than 2 billion will be reliant on unhealthy, polluting cooking methods.

The chief of the Australian Energy Market Operator has declared the need to integrate greater levels of cheap, clean, renewable generation, and the right firming capacity into the national electricity market to ensure Australia’s energy system stays functional through a “once in a generation energy transition”.

Long-overdue safety and compliance regulation increases came into effect in May. US-based Enphase Energy claims its technology’s exemption from much of nation-wide regulations means installers across the country are opting for its products exclusively.

Melbourne’s City of Boroondara council has ordered a homeowner to remove rooftop solar panels on a street-facing facade due to the building’s position in a heritage overlay. In 2021 the City of Boroondara declared a climate emergency and called for a tripling of rooftop solar in the municipality. The homeowner described the decision as “ridiculous.”

A coalition of peak bodies has called on Australia’s energy ministers to work together to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and resist the temptation to focus only on short-term solutions when they meet today to discuss the “apocalyptic rises in energy prices” impacting Australian energy markets.

Singapore-headquartered solar manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies, which sells in Australia under the SunPower Maxeon brand, announced in May that it was launching its new holistic energy management system in Australia in the third quarter of 2022. pv magazine Australia sat down with Maxeon Solar Technologies’ chief revenue officer Mark Babcock in Munich, Germany, at Intersolar 2022.

The new prototype uses a triple-junction compound design, which sandwiches the solar cell between layers of film. The module is expected to be used in a variety of vehicles, an application that demands high efficiency and lightweight construction. Its conversion efficiency bests that of a similar Sharp module developed in 2016, which notched an efficiency of 31.17%, at the time a world record.