Oceania

Sun Cable continues to progress plans for the world’s biggest solar+storage project, lodging a development application for the first phase of a solar module manufacturing and assembly facility to be constructed in Darwin.

An independent exhibition brought to Melbourne Design Week by a group of 15 of the city’s top architectural firms demonstrates the blueprint for Melbourne’s transformation to “A New Normal”. “A New Normal” is a plan to transform Greater Melbourne into a self-sufficient city by 2030.

Iconic Australian beer Victoria Bitter has partnered with Diamond Energy and Power Ledger to develop Solar Exchange, a blockchain-enabled platform that allows residential PV owners to exchange their excess solar for cases of beer. This is not an April Fool’s prank, miracles do happen, stay calm and exchange your excess solar for slabs!

It’s come to this. The Australian Energy Markets Commission has produced a draft decision that will make households and small business with solar panels pay to inject their surplus production into the grid.

A $50,000 development grant will be awarded to the winner of this year’s national ClimateLaunchpad competition, which aims launch early-stage cleantech startups into the market.

The Clean Energy Regulator told pv magazine Australia it’s focussing its attention on rooting out misbehaving installers, armed with new automated data analytics models and stronger bonds with industry co-regulators like the Clean Energy Council.

After “bunkering down” in 2020, the Redflow’s CEO discusses major developments within the company, as well as its path towards mass manufacturing processes – which it sees as the key to slashing battery costs by a third and, in turn, solidifying Redflow as a major player in the increasingly sought-after flow battery storage market.

New research shows renewables plus batteries would be able to offer Australia’s electricity grid the same energy security as coal and gas generators, leading to calls for regulatory changes.

AGL Energy has been remarkably busy in recent months trying to make itself look like a giant ship on the turn in the energy transition and not the Ever Given cargo ship stuck in the old sands of time. Now, AGL has announced plans to partition itself into two separate businesses which it says will provide them with the freedom to pursue their own agendas, but not everyone is convinced.

At AGL Energy’s Investor Day the energy giant revealed plans for a potential floating solar project on the site of its Loy Yang power station in Victoria. AGL, which is currently in the application process for a 200 MW battery at the site and is already producing brown hydrogen for export to Japan, is looking to leverage unused space to reduce emissions.