UNSW

University of New South Wales students have travelled to remote communities in Fiji in order to troubleshoot the challenges of renewable energy integration and come up with technical and design-based solutions to community needs.

Australia’s rooftop PV has become the country’s biggest potential energy resource. To harness it requires that millions of household and commercial generators cede control of their hard-won, sunny patch. A new research entity has been launched to understand energy consumers’ passions and motivators, and facilitate a fair and equitable social contract — no pressure!

It may come as a volt from the blue, but solar PV still has enormous unexplored potential. With the help of a globally renowned startup accelerator, a team from UNSW’s famous photovoltaics division is taking solar generation out of the ‘burbs and into the urban jungle.

Professor Chee Mun Chong is at the forefront of advanced hydrogenation, effectively doping solar cells with hydrogen to eliminate defects and build efficiency.

Following significant changes to the regulations, all participants in the upcoming Bridgestone World Solar Challenge will need to go an extra mile to reach one of only two recharging stops on their way from the Top End to Adelaide. Following final scrutineering to ensure the vehicles are built to the regulations, the UNSW Sunswift solar car team is feeling extra confident for the race in its upgraded four-seater VIolet.

ITP Renewables has released Version 1 of open-CEM, an open-source modelling platform that allows users play out tailored made energy-transition scenarios on the National Electricity Market (NEM) for years simulated up to 2050. The platform is an extraordinary tool for investors, policy makers, project developers and the public.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney’s Practical Justice Initiative (PJI) will host a Climate Transition Lecture on the impact of Australia’s fossil fuel exports on the climate on September 17. Experts will discuss how possible the phasing out of fossil fuel exports is and how it can be done.

UNSW’s Digital Grid Futures Institute held an Electrifying Transportation forum last week to bring together companies, innovators and academics to discuss the electrification of the transport sector and how persistent problems can be overcome.

UNSW Sydney has excitedly announced the near completion of the Sunraysia Solar Farm in Balranald, NSW. With the project set to be operational by the end of the year, and with 25% of the solar farm’s generation to be purchased by UNSW, the university is set to run on 100% renewable energy from 2020.

‘Solar cells prefer to operate in a refrigerator,’ says UNSW Professor Martin Green. His global research team is now identifying viable ways to cool down solar PV modules while amping up energy production to an unprecedented level.