Oceania

After the 50 MW Stage 1 solar farm was switched on late last year, the Kidston renewable energy hub has now received a development approval for 270 MW of solar, which is to be co-located with a 250 MW pumped storage hydro project.

From just a handful of large-scale solar PV projects a few years ago, Australia is becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. With a substantial project pipeline, the country is in the box seat to experience a banner year in 2018, with the 2020 Renewable Energy Target (RET) now in hand and a new policy taking shape for the period beyond.

The first commercial deployment of Power Ledger’s P2P energy trading platform will take place in partnership with energy solutions business Greenwood Solutions, which will be in charge of installing solar across strata units.

The Chinese technology firm has inked an agreement with EPC provider Biosar for a solar farm in Queensland, estimated at around US$ 30 million – a significant deal for the company’s thriving solar PV division.

Australian solar analyst SunWiz puts Australian residential storage installations at 20,789 for 2017. The number represents a trebling on 2016 and it is the highest among analyst assessments of the market segment.

A $7.7 million funding initiative for energy retailer Simply Energy to build a second virtual power plant across Adelaide was announced by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced it is looking for expressions of interest for trialling short-term forecasting projects from large scale wind and solar farms across Australia.

While great at delivering hype around battery storage, Tesla’s inability to develop significant volumes of its residential storage units to WA is frustrating installers. With customers interested in buying a Tesla system but supply not meeting demand, it is ‘blocking’ residential storage uptake in the state.

5,056 MW of large scale solar and wind are currently being built in Australia. The latest figures from Green Energy Markets shows that the total passed the 5 GW milestone for the first time in February.

Fluence says that Australian governments, regulators and grid operators are ‘learning-by-doing’ in their application of large-scale battery storage. The technology provider on the new 30 MW/30 MWh utility-scale battery at Ballarat indicates that the approach could deliver significant savings when compared with grid upgrades that could be considered “not optimal” as battery technology rapidly improves.