Australia

Australia’s Northern Territory has unveiled a new target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 in a policy document that touts solar and backs a proposed 10GW/20-30GWh solar-plus-storage plant earmarked to provide energy to the region and Singapore.

Victoria has launched solar guidelines for installations larger than 1MW in a bid to ensure ease of connection and mitigate impacts on the environment and farming.

The Australian Energy Market Operator constrained the output of several large-scale solar plants by 50% on Friday, in response to voltage fluctuations in a 220 kV network spanning the states of Victoria and New South Wales.

Global solar investor Foresight Group has continued its charge into the Australian PV market, launching a sustainability framework to finance small-scale renewable infrastructure projects in the country.

The Australian Capital Territory government has announced the final step of the first phase of its ‘reverse auction’ programme, with the announcement of a tender for 250MW of renewable energy generation alongside a 20MW/40MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC) has issued a stark warning over an apparent collapse in new investments into renewable energy projects.

French developer Neoen wants to build an energy superpark in South Australia that comprises 1.2GW of wind, 600MW of solar and 800MW of battery storage capacity.

On August 9, a thunderstorm caused 1.5 GW of generation capacity to go offline within seconds in the U.K. The incident caused millions of households to temporarily lose power but the situation could have been considerably worse if not for the country’s battery storage reserves.

Australia needs to drastically overhaul its power market in order to harness and benefit from the country’s skyrocketing rooftop solar and battery market, according to the Clean Energy Council (CEC).

Energy use by air conditioning can be both expensive and taxing for the environment, with the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Queensland, Australia, set to trial a three-storey ‘water battery’ to reduce both energy demand and cost.

Scientists at the institution have achieved 21.6% efficiency with a perovskite cell measuring 1cm². The landmark has been verified as a new world record for perovskites at this size.

New analysis predicts more than 150 GW of tracker capacity will be installed in the next five years – around a third of all ground mount projects up to 2024. Rapid growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and the better cost structures possible from combining trackers and bifacial modules are singled out as key trends.

Today we have heard of farmers in Australia unhappy at the approval given for three solar projects on agricultural land and also learned the benefits PV can bring for fish and shrimp farmers. In this op-ed for pv magazine USA, Stoel Rives LLP attorneys Sara Bergan and Thomas Braun discuss the balancing act to be made between solar and agriculture in the emerging Midwestern PV market.

The state government of Victoria has approved three projects in the Shepparton region which have a combined generation capacity of 175 MW. However, some residents are upset at the loss of prime agricultural land and now-redundant irrigation equipment which had been upgraded using government grants.

Australian miner Oz Minerals is turning to wind and solar power for operations at what is billed as the largest unexplored nickel-copper deposit in Australia, it order to curb the need for "high cost fossil fuels."