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European Commission has approved Enel SpA's plan to sell a 50% stake in its Australian renewable energy business to Japanese oil and natural gas producer Inpex

of the 250MW Torrens Island battery energy storage system in South Australia, making it the country's second largest battery project in operation. The

by EUR 145 million Inpex Corp will acquire a 50% stake in Enel Green Power Australia with an enterprise value of EUR 400 million Enel Green Power Australia

in the 2023 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The race, which takes place in Australia, involves teams from around the world competing to travel 3,000 kilometers

Sri Lankan government has approved a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Australia’s United Solar Group for a 700-MW floating solar park with battery storage.

contractor for the development of the Bulli Creek solar park in Queensland, Australia. The solar park, with a capacity of up to 775 MW, is part of the larger Bulli

of 50MW/64.5 MWh of Tesla batteries. Having actually drawn in an $8 million Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) give, $15 million in state financing, as well

Australia’s solar coaster headed south in the first half of 2019, as a perfect storm hit the industry. The first sign of trouble was the fallout when RCR Tomlinson was placed in voluntary administration in the second half of 2018. The downfall of the top utility-scale EPC contractor highlighted the construction and commissioning risks associated with PV development. Next came the New South Wales state election on March 23, 2019, in which the opposition Labor Party proposed a 50% renewable energy target by 2030, which would have been achieved through a series of reverse auctions. The party subsequently lost the election to the incumbent Liberal government, which has a zero net emissions target by 2050 and incentives for residential solar and batteries, but no utility-scale renewables incentives.   In the same month, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its first-round draft of Marginal Loss Factors (MLFs), which measure the impact of electricity losses along the network. However, there would be a second release in April before AEMO finalized them in June. The industry took another whack, with six solar farms in New South Wales and Victoria having their MLFs reduced by more than 10%, highlighting the risk of grid congestion.   Who’s who   The boom in the utility-scale PV industry has attracted local and foreign participants across the industry’s entire value chain. The list of the top 10 utility-scale developers (see chart below) is a dynamic and rapidly changing one, as new, bigger projects have broken ground, particularly in the last 12 months. Neoen has been very active in the Australian market, commissioning five utility-scale PV farms in 2018, all in New South Wales, with a combined capacity of just over 250 MW (AC). In 2019, Neoen commissioned a further 100 MW of PV in particularly in the last 12 months in Numurkah, Victoria. The French developer also tops the list of lithium-ion battery developers and ranks within the top 10 wind developers.     Familiar names make up the top 10 module suppliers to the utility-scale PV market in Australia. Canadian Solar takes the top spot, as it is currently supplying modules to several large-scale projects including Darlington Point (275 MW), Kiamal stage 1 (200 MW) and Finley (133 MW). JinkoSolar is a close second, as it has supplied the 200 MW Maoneng Sunraysia project and all of the utility-scale PV in South Australia (Bungala Phase 1 and 2 and Tailem Bend).   The majority of utility-scale solar farms in Australia utilize single-axis tracking to minimize their LCOE. Although this may seem obvious in the Australian market, single-axis tracking has yet to take off in neighboring markets such as Malaysia, the Philippines or Vietnam. The tracker supplier market is dominated by Nextracker and Array Technologies, but in the past 18 months, several new companies have entered the market, including Arctech Solar, Ideematec, Exosun and Soltec.   The inverter market is by far the most concentrated of the major segments. SMA currently has a 60% market share, while second-place Ingeteam controls 23% of the market. The remainder is mostly covered by Schneider Electric (15%), which pulled out of the utility-scale inverter business earlier in 2019, and Power Electronics, which has supplied two projects in Queensland (Rugby Run Stage 1 and Barcaldine).   Short-term hurdles   The renewables industry went through a record period of construction and commissioning activity in 2018-19, transitioning from a megawatt-scale market to a gigawatt-scale one. Moving forward, the industry will grapple with the challenges surrounding transmission constraints and securing offtake. Yet positives remain, including recently announced reverse auctions from the Australian Capital Territory, AEMO ISP Group 1 investments (synchronous condensers in South Australia, congestion reduction in Northwest Victoria and interconnection upgrades), five-minute settlements coming in 2021, and the shutdown of the 500 MW Liddell coal power station in 2022-23.   Bright future   There is no denying that predicting the future even just one or two years ahead is challenging. The key challenges of simply getting enough transmission capacity built to get renewable generation to load remains, as well as a political environment that is less than favorable toward renewable energy. However, a whole host of positive factors will drive longer-term growth. These include a massive number of projects that have yet to break ground (>100 GW), the continuously improving economics of PV/wind/storage, the retirement of coal and the high price of gas. Most notably, the declining cost of lithium-ion batteries has led to the pipeline expanding from less than 2 GW at the start of 2018 to more than 11 GW at the time of writing. The cost reductions of lithium-ion batteries are being driven by mass manufacturing, mainly in China, for use in electric vehicles. Their cost reductions will begin the next big wave of firmed renewables, which is expected to start in the early 2020s.

million solar-plus-storage project for its Fekola goldmine in Mali, while Australian power and gas retailer Alinta Energy announced that it would develop a 60MW

of home devices and also even more. The brand-new panel will be offered in Australia with authorized installation dealers under the SunPower brand, starting in the

take Australian solar battery storage installation company Solar SG into its next growth phase, a new chairman and chief executive officer have been appointed.

was renamed Lightsource BP. It has financed its first significant project in Australia, a 200MW solar project near Wellington, which has begun building. In the 2

for upscaling plans for the Wellington North solar project in New South Wales, Australia. The 400MW (DC) site, obtained from AGL last year, adjoins Lightsource BP's

sustainable power as well as change far from fossil fuels. As an example, Australian steels business Fortescue has revealed prepare for a huge renewables hub

Australian energy seller Origin has gotten an up to 900MW solar project in New South Wales (NSW) as part of strategies to improve renewables in its portfolio. The Yarrabee Solar Farm, in the Riverina district, includes a 450MW first project. There is prospective to dual capacity, under preparing authorization acquired from the NSW government in December 2018. Origin exec general supervisor of energy supply as well as procedures Greg Jarvis claimed: "Origin aims to lead the power shift to net zero emissions with cleaner energy and customer remedies, and the purchase of the Yarrabee Solar Farm growth project shows further progression on this ambition. " Our teams will now focus on progressing development activities prior to a last investment decision targeted over the following number of years, based on upgrades to the Transgrid transmission network." He said Origin remains to focus on the multi-gigawatt possibility to grow renewable energy as well as storage space, with creating greenfield sites or acquiring advanced stage pre-construction eco-friendly projects like Yarrabee. Yarrabee sits within an important part of the Transgrid transmission network, which is targeted for significant upgrades to promote Snowy 2.0 and the South-West Renewable Energy Zone. Origin lately likewise got the 74MW Carisbrook Solar Farm in central Victoria, which is targeted to reach commercial procedures in 2023, subject to a last financial investment choice as well as other required authorizations. Yarrabee Solar Farm was co-developed by Reach Solar Energy and PwC Australia. Get To Solar Energy was additionally in charge of establishing the 220MW Bungala Solar Farm near Port Augusta in South Australia where Origin is the offtaker of all the power created by the center.