Oceania

Even with the boosted solar rebate offering, this month’s first round quota was taken up in minutes. Another 3,250 rebates are due to be released on Tuesday, September 17.

Germany’s Juwi will take over the stalled Greenough River solar farm expansion in the wake of RCR Tomlinson’s collapse. The second stage involves construction of an additional 30 MW of solar PV at the site.

“The Sapphire” is one of the first passive houses in New South Wales (NSW). Located in the Blue Mountains’ village of Foulconbridge, “The Sapphire” is a carbon zero house utilising an SMA Energy System consisting of a Sunny Boy solar inverter and a Sunny Boy Storage battery inverter providing clean solar power.

The Distributed Energy Resource (DER) laboratory “DER-Lab” will provide an environment for safe testing of new technologies including monitoring and communication devices, smart controllers, aggregation (e.g. Virtual Power Plant), market participation software and other innovative new products.

The Queensland government has pledged to support Genex’s project at Kidston with up to $132 million. The funding will be used to build a single circuit transmission line and connect a massive pumped hydro project with the main grid, unlocking additional stages for the clean energy hub, including up to 270 MW of additional solar and up to 150 MW of wind.

The Clean Energy Regulator has confirmed it has approved enough capacity to meet the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET). While this is a great achievement for the renewables industry, the question remains what comes beyond 2020. Although analysts expect a slow down, ANU researchers find the record installation rates will see Australia surpass the scrapped target of 41,000 GWh of renewable energy generation around the end of 2020.

Wind gives you beer, or is it vice versa? Wellington brewery Garage Project has teamed up with New Zealand’s (NZ) leading renewable energy generator, Meridian, and to celebrate being the first certified renewable energy product in NZ the brewer has launched Turbine Pale Ale, inspired by Wellington’s iconic Brooklyn wind turbine.

Auckland’s electricity and water utility companies have announced a project to build New Zealand’s largest solar array, which will be situated atop a wastewater treatment pond.

Two major solar panel manufacturers are looking to expand their presence in Australia with new distributors on board.

Deliveries of Electric Vehicle (EV) maker Tesla’s best-selling Model 3 sedan have finally started in Australia, over 18-months after the EV’s first launch in the U.S. The belated runout is another boost to the accelerating EV industry in Australia.