Victoria

Victoria will be home to one of the world’s largest lithium-ion batteries with the 300 MW / 450 MWh Victoria Big Battery to be constructed on the outskirts of Geelong.

Victorian utility North East Water have constructed a mini-solar farm over the carpark of their Wodonga headquarters. The 132 kW system is expected to provide half of the building’s energy use, with 330 modules generating 500kW per day in addition to the headquarter’s existing rooftop PV array.

Cornwall Insight Australia’s Lead Consultant – Market Analysis, Lumi Adisa, compares the lead times of major coal fired power station retirements in the National Energy Market (NEM) and analyses how renewables, particularly solar plus battery storage, are able to replace lost generation in the transition to a two-sided market.

Freedom Foods Group’s Shepparton site solar+storage array in Victoria has produced more than 3 GWh of clean energy in its first nine months of operation.  The array is the first project in Australia to employ Fimer’s largest string inverters – the PVS-175. The project is claimed to be one of the largest single rooftop solar power installations in Australia.

Never heard of CEP.Energy? The new green energy fund is set to become a renewable powerhouse, installing gigawatts of solar, plus batteries big and small across industrial estates and retail centres around the NEM. Institutional investors are making this virtual-power-plant vision a reality.

Rooftop solar installation figures in Victoria have plunged dramatically in recent months but an easing of Covid-19 restrictions has provided a welcome boost for the state’s small-scale solar installers.

As some parts of Australia’s distribution networks threaten to blackout under the flow of rooftop solar exports, ARENA announces funding for a trial that will enable flexible exports in line with what the networks can bear. Smart software is the answer.

The CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, has signed a 10-year PPA with Ross Garnaut’s Zen Energy. The deal will see solar energy from the Nurmurkah Solar Farm and the Nevertire Solar Farm halve the agency’s emissions.

AGL Energy has expanded its solar battery VPP to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria with the immediate launch of solar battery sales for residents of the eastern states, while solar and battery bundles will be available by the end of the year.

South Australia’s small-scale solar sensation Yates Electrical Services is teaming up with Sustainable Energy Infrastructure to develop 20 MW of small-scale solar over the next 18-months, another sign of the strength of the small-scale solar surge which flies under the radar of the network’s congestion woes.