Solar PV

Dubbo, birthplace of Glenn McGrath, has announced its membership in the Cities Power Partnership (CPP) program as it looks to transition to renewable energies, particularly solar.

Before social-distancing became a thing, Western Australia stood apart from the rest of the country. Defined by remoteness, the state is beginning to embrace its identity, and cure itself of network headaches at the same time, with the uptake of stand-alone power systems (SPS).

National utility Transpower said that solar could take a 9.3% share of the country’s generation mix by the middle of the century. However, real growth is only forecast to occur from 2035, with distributed generation expected to account for more than 80% of total installed PV.

As one of the world leaders in PV+storage deployment, Australia has ample opportunity to develop a two-way energy system that could provide critical services to the grid and deliver additional revenue streams for rooftop PV and battery prosumers. Although still in their early days, some virtual power plant (VPP) projects are already proving their worth.

One of the largest solar projects scheduled to break ground this year has moved into the construction phase mostly unaffected by Covid-19 disruption.

The list of clean energy industry events put on hold due to the Covid-19 outbreak is lengthening.

France’s Sunbooster has developed a technology to cool down solar modules when their ambient temperature exceeds 25 C. The solution features a set of pipes that spread a thin film of water onto the glass surface of the panels in rooftop PV systems and ground-mounted plants. The cooling systems collect the water from rainwater tanks and then recycle, filter and store it again. The company claims the technology can facilitate an annual increase in power generation of between 8% and 12%.

The developer has secured a $20 million loan from Squadron Energy and Federation Asset Management, as it continues to struggle with connection delays on its Kennedy solar-wind-battery park.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition intends to utilise the fact that many of its constituents are at home and online due to COVID-19, and train young climate-concerned Australians to effectively organise against the influence of the fossil-fuel lobby.

While the full extent of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemics on the renewable energy market is yet to reveal itself, Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy predicts new solar and wind projects will grind to a halt this year and experience a ripple effect in the years beyond as currencies across the globe continue to fall against the US dollar.