Oceania

Two Australian companies, hydrogen fuel cell startup H2X and emerging renewables developer Thales New Energy, have signed an agreement with a Malaysian state-owned corporation to develop a 1.3 GW hydrogen export facility powered by hydroelectricity in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

In this week’s edition of pv magazine’s Hydrogen Stream, Australian projects took centre stage including Woodside announcing it had secured land for its H2TAS project, an MoU signed between Perth-based metals manufacturing company Unique Metals and Energy consultancy Xodus, as well as ARENA’s funding for Sun Metals zinc refinery in Townsville.

COP flack for Australia’s insubstantial and unstructured response to decarbonisation has not made the country more attractive to investors. Has our first-mover status cruelled our investability, and what could the next Federal Government do to revive investor confidence?

Car subscription services are not considered in government EV policies at either a state or federal level in Australia, yet studies show they are growing as a preferred way to access a good, clean drive.

Opinions are rife and varied in the wake of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference. What can we take away from discussions in which the Australian Government positioned itself as a climate pariah?

Western Australia leads the world in successfully implementing renewables-based energy generation for far-flung customers. Unique joint venture and pioneer in the field, Boundary Power, has been widely recognised for its innovations and is ready to repeat its SAPS successes across Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

French energy giant Engie has developed a transfer function method based on a model used to assess PV plant variability. Its researchers claim that the new approach does not overestimate the levelised cost of hydrogen (LCOH) of an alkaline electrolyser powered by offgrid solar, finding that in Australia green hydrogen produced with such systems may already be cost competitive with blue hydrogen.

Should heterojunction solar technologies be temporarily shelved? Could copper plating replace screen-printed silver conductive surfaces in cells? Why are tandem cells a likely successor to PERC? Brett Hallam recently sat down with Natalie Filatoff in Sydney to explain the findings of a new study by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) that sought to answer these controversial questions.

Australian property investor and developer Cbus Property has revealed plans to clad a $1 billion commercial office tower being developed in Melbourne’s CBD with a ‘solar skin’ capable of generating 20% of the project’s base building electricity requirements.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures’ Australian platform has shifted its attentions to across the ditch, teaming with one of New Zealand’s largest energy providers in a joint venture which will develop up to 500 MW of solar PV capacity over the next five years.