Oceania

Ongoing growth in both renewable generation capacity, including rooftop solar, large-scale wind and solar, and dispatchable power in the form of big batteries is expected to drive down household power bills across the National Electricity Market in the coming years despite the impending closure of several of Australia’s ageing fossil-fuel fired power stations.

Australian governments and industry have embraced the potential of green hydrogen with a flurry of project announcements, including the Western Australian Government providing almost $120 million to establish two renewable hydrogen hubs, Edify Energy signing of Memorandum of Understanding to explore the feasibility of establishing a hydrogen export facility in Queensland, and the Federal Government collaborate with Germany on a new initiative designed to accelerate the development of Australia’s green hydrogen industry.

Spark Infrastructure looks set to be sold off with the Foreign Investment Review Board giving its tick of approval for a North American consortium led by private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to acquire the Australian electricity network operator.

Independent battery performance and reliability tester ITP Renewables has been running its trial of solar storage batteries since 2016. Over the years one of the broad conclusions to be drawn is that home storage systems are by no means reliable across the board. However, some few systems stand out, including Fimer’s hybrid solar inverter and storage solution, the React 2.

As Australia, like much of the world, battles shortfalls in supply with solar module prices rising and Chinese companies’ stocks decreasing, the country’s only manufacturer, Tindo Solar, has opted to release emergency stocks. Likewise, Chinese giant Longi is working to guarantee supply for Australia, saying its vertical integration has afforded it extra security.

Queensland continues to attract massive hydrogen industry factories, with LAVO Hydrogen Technology today announcing it would establish a fuel cell manufacturing facility just south of Brisbane.

The Queensland government will put “at least” $10 million towards constructing a common-user facility to process vanadium from the state’s vast deposits, allowing multiple small mining operations to access the facility with the ambition of kickstarting downstream battery storage industries in the state.

Members of both the upper and lower houses of Parliament are moving to ban the importation of goods made with forced labour by introducing a bill which, if passed, would have profound repercussions for Australia’s solar industry.

Brisbane’s eleXsys Energy has won a government grant which will allow the company behind Australia’s largest grid-connected microgrid to build its manufacturing base here in Australia.

Following years of lobbying, the Standards Australia Committee has removed the requirement for rooftop solar installations to include a DC isolator.