Oceania

ABB, ElectraNet and ARENA are coming together to deliver a microgrid and large scale battery storage solution to South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. The commercial-deployment phase of the Energy Storage for Commercial Renewable Integration (ESCRI) project will strengthen the Electranet transmission system in the area, and will deliver increased resilience in the event of interstate connector failure.

Pioneering UNSW solar researcher Martin Green has received wide recognition for his achievement as being selected as one of the winners of 2018 Global Energy Prize. The prize means Green will split $820,000 in prize money with the co-winner, to go towards his research and teaching, and resulted in a congratulatory call from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The University of Queensland (UQ) will offset 100% of its electricity needs with renewables by 2020. The milestone will be achieved through existing rootop PV arrays, and a freshly approved 64 MW solar farm near Warwick, in the state’s Southern Downs region.

The second stage of the SETuP project is rolling out Solar PV to communities in the Northern Territory, with the project set to be completed by November 2018.

Commercial electricity retailer Flow Power has signed an offtake deal through to 2030 for a quarter of the production from the Kiamal Solar Farm, in Victoria. Total Eren – developer of the $90 million, 200 MW project – has now signed three bilateral PPAs with offtakers – pointing the way for project developers as large-scale solar’s competiveness continues to grow.

New policies affecting all solar market segments in China are likely to lead to production overcapacity in the second half of 2018. The new regulations, announced June 1, will likely see the Chinese market decline from an expected 40-45 GW to 30-35 GW for the year, analysts report.

On the back of a 20 year power-purchase agreement with Total Eren, the global confectionary giant has taken 100% renewable energy pledge for its six Australian factories.

A 45 MW portion of the Bungala solar farm has begun feeding electricity into the grid. The entire first phase of the project – a 137.7 MW PV plant – is expected to be completed in a few months.

With an unprecedented rollout of rooftop solar reaching 1.1 GW and around 700 MW of large-scale renewable energy projects completed and connected to the grid, last year was an important turning point for Australia’s clean energy industry, shows the Clean Energy Council in its latest report. However, seven times bigger capacity of utility-scale projects with financial support or under construction at the year’s end is poised to eclipse 2017.

The 174 MW solar farm coupled with a 100 MWh energy storage facility near Wellington has received a green light from the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment. The project proposal came from First Solar.