Solar PV

Western Australian energy trading technology company Power Ledger and wholesaler energy retailer Powerclub have teamed up with German battery manufacturer sonnen and solar and battery installer Natural Solar to launch their virtual power plant pilot in South Australia. The project is the first large-scale commercial rollout of blockchain technology for solar energy trading in Australia.

The Clean Energy Innovation Hub has hit a major milestone as ATCO started testing blending renewable hydrogen into the on-site natural gas network in Jandakot.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has come together with private sector infrastructure fund manager Infradebt to invest in smaller utility-scale renewable energy projects for community and commercial energy users. The move aims to close an investment gap for projects of 25 MW or less.

Dutch transmission system operator Enexis, gas provider Gasunie and oil company NAM are considering diverting excess solar capacity in Drenthe province into hydrogen production. The companies are assessing which wind and solar projects may have been excluded from the grid.

Fossil fuel giant Royal Dutch Shell has snapped up a 49% stake in one of the biggest Australian utility-scale solar developers furthering its expansion into the market.

Western Australia’s (WA) publicly-owned grid operator, Western Power, has announced its largest battery is on its way to Kalbarri. The battery, the biggest utility-scale battery ever to be connected to the Western grid network, departed from Perth today on its way north to the laid-back coastal town.

The new StorEnergy centre – supported with a $4.4 million Federal Government grant – will produce battery materials on a commercial scale and seek to increase knowledge and develop innovative solutions for Australia’s energy needs.

Described as “historic”, the draft outlines the future climate protection course of the European Union. Overall, the EU should become climate neutral by 2050, and trigger €1 trillion in investment. €1 billion is expected to be made available for the transition. This is to be formalized in a climate law in the coming months. Although solar was noticeably absent in the draft, plans have been detailed by SolarPower Europe as to how it could be included.

According to a new study by Finland’s LUT University, solar PV consumes between 2% and 15% of the water that coal and nuclear power plants use to produce just 1 MWh of output; for wind, this percentage ranges from 0.1% to 14%. Under the researchers’ best policy scenario, water consumption could be reduced by 75.1% by 2030, compared to 2015 levels.

Japan’s second-largest utility KEPCO has extended a demonstration project with Australia’s pioneer in P2P energy trading Power Ledger to create and track renewable energy certificates and trade PV-generated electricity.