Oceania

While suburban Australian rooftops have become coated in solar panels, the roofs of our commercial and industrial buildings have remained conspicuously bare. Our shopping centres, however, seem to be slowly be moving in the direction ordinary Australian’s have paved, with Australia’s largest privately-owned shopping centre yesterday announcing plans for a sizeable microgrid. Likewise, Vicinity, one of the country’s largest shopping centre managers, has managed to increase its sustainability rating largely through its extensive solar program.

Government-owned water utility, SA Water, has completed its extensive solar installation project, which involved installing more than 350,000 PV panels across 33 water treatment plants and pump stations across metropolitan and regional areas of South Australia.

RedEarth Energy Storage has partnered with Rexel Australia to expand its nationwide distribution network as the demand for Australian-made energy storage systems grows despite the economic downturn.

Market analysis firm GlobalData has released a new report in which it forecasts Australia’s solar capacity to increase by a factor of four, to over 80 GW, over the next decade. At the same time, the report predicts thermal power to lose its dominance in the energy mix, seeing its share cut by almost half.

The University of New South Wales’s Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou, who heads the Hydrogen Energy Research Centre, has launched H2Potential, a hydrogen advisory firm that seeks to incubate and accelerate some of the world’s most promising hydrogen companies as well as advising prominent companies and industry how to join the hydrogen revolution.

Edge Centres’ model for grid-independent data distribution at the edge of connectivity is set to rock regional Australia with its low-cost reliability, and has been welcomed by solar operators in Japan.

Revving up the appetite for EVs, sonnen and Carbar join forces to make electric car “ownership” easy. A new subscription model, with all running costs included, and the ability to trade up at two weeks’ notice, may supersede buying altogether.

Third-generation Wimmera-Mallee farmer Thomas Blair is expanding his fellow farmers’ horizons to cultivate green hydrogen.

A new South Australian big battery will show the value of deploying diverse storage technologies in the NEM. Matt Harper calls pv magazine Australia from Canada, to talk tech.

The regions where the desert meets the sea have long been thought the most desolate and unproductive areas of the world, fruitful solely for those clever cultures who call them home. However, in the 21st century, that fiscal notion is turning on its head, and turning as rapidly as a wind turbine in a tornado, making harsh regions like Western Australia a verified paradise.