Oceania

The proposed $3.5 billion Marinus Link interconnector between Tasmania and the Australian mainland has reached a significant milestone with “critical” environmental referrals being lodged with the federal and Victorian governments.

Australian miner Northern Star Resources has partnered with independent power provider Nomadic Energy to more than triple the capacity of the solar farm at its Carosue Dam gold mining operation near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Australian renewable energy developer BE Power will continue to progress plans to construct a 400 MW pumped hydro storage project near Toowoomba in southeast Queensland after the local government authority gave the project its tick of approval.

Fortescue Future Industries has revealed plans to develop a 1 GW solar PV module manufacturing plant in Australia after confirming it had acquired a 60% stake in Netherlands-based renewable energy specialists High yield Energy Technologies Group.

With some of the world’s largest solar PV module manufacturers warning of looming panel shortages, Australian researchers have declared a new generation of cheap, sustainable and efficient solar cells is now a step closer.

Victoria’s Hobsons Bay City Council is powering ahead with plans to establish a virtual power plant, confirming the installation of a combined 4 MW rooftop solar PV system across more than 40 council-owned buildings has begun in earnest.

Singapore-based VFlowTech has secured funds to scale up manufacturing of its vanadium redox flow batteries. The company currently offers three modular products that can be scaled to multi-megawatt-hour systems.

On Monday, an Australian–Japanese consortium announced plans to potentially develop a $1 billion plus ‘low emissions’ hydrogen project in Western Australia. The announcement was preceded by a year of gas companies loudly declaring schemes to blend hydrogen into their pipelines. Clearly, many powerful Australian are putting their money on a like-for-like transition. pv magazine Australia spoke to hydrogen experts Andrew Horvath and Scott Hamilton about how they see the hydrogen wave evolving, and why a clean swap is unlikely.

Plans for a $400 million green hydrogen and ammonia hub in Bundaberg on Queensland’s coast were partially released on Tuesday, with Clean Holdings’ chief executive Ken Mathews telling pv magazine Australia another major project partner is to be announced shortly. As it stands, the project will use hydrogen technology from the newly minted CAC-H2 to gasify agricultural waste from the region and separate out the hydrogen in a process the company’s energy CEO described to pv magazine Australia as “greener than green”.

On Sunday, Australia set a new record for minimum operational demand, with the national grid dipping below 14 GW. Renewables met 55% of that, while rooftop solar accounted for 34%.