Australia

Australia’s Energy Estate has signed a new agreement with Abergeldie, which designs vertical man-made caverns for hydrogen storage. The partnership will focus on a range of projects, including a 1.6 GW hydrogen network.

Corporations in the Asia-Pacific region are set to contract a record 7 GW of renewable capacity in 2022, according to a new report by Wood Mackenzie. Solar accounts for 57% of the region’s contracted corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) to date. India, Australia and Taiwan account for 89% of overall capacity in the region.

A unit of Philippines-based clean energy company ACEN Corp. has agreed to develop the 400 MW Stubbo Solar Farm in Australia.

A new scientific paper takes a closer look at the record-breaking efficiency that Australia’s Sundrive announced for a silver-free heterojunction cell in September 2021, as certified by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research.

Scientists have proposed a way to combine thermoelectric modules (TEMs) with rooftop PV to support heating, ventilation and air conditioning in buildings. They designed a wall-integrated TEM to heat and cool adjacent rooms.

BHP has signed a 70 MW baseload renewable energy contract with Neoen to meet 50% of the energy demand of its Olympic Dam mining operations in South Australia.

Australia’s two main tracker companies, Nextracker and Array Technologies, are launching terrain-following products to mitigate and even eliminate the need for earthworks on site, opening up previously unsuitable land for solar.

While near neighbors, the electricity generation of the countries of Southeast Asia couldn’t be further apart. Indonesia burns locally mined coal; Malaysia has reserves of oil and gas; and populous Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines depend on fossil fuel imports. They could all benefit from increased solar electricity but higher grid capacities and interconnection are key for an opportunity to unlock the power of the sun.

As part of Aurora Solar’s Empower 2022 online solar summit, Bernadette Del Chiaro, from the California Solar & Storage Association, will moderate a talk about electric utilities and how they have abused their monopoly position to discriminate against solar in the US. Here, she gives pv magazine a taste of the presentation.