Australia

Investors have applied for an environmental assessment for about 5 GW of wind and solar in Australia, which will support plans to produce green hydrogen and ammonia at a massive new facility.

Australian solar companies are reporting staff shortages, leading to false price points around the value of installers. Scott Mason, general manager of Platinum Solar Designs, says the shortages aren’t simply part of the nation’s broader skills scarcity; rather, they are endemic to the PV industry and are linked to regulatory issues.

Maoneng has unveiled ambitious plans to build a giant solar farm and battery energy storage facility in Australia.

Global solar supply chain issues and the Chinese energy crisis, which hit in the second half of last year, have ironically led to a “massive” oversupply of solar panels in Australia, according to major distributors. The tension between higher global panel costs and the glut of them within Australia has led to some messy pricing and strange market dynamics on the ground.

The number of solar installers in Australia offering storage solutions grew considerably in 2021 and promises to surge again this year, according to a survey by EUPD Research.

Singapore-based Sun Cable has submitted its Environmental Impact Statement to the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority. The document reveals the full extent of the project’s enormity, specifically a 17-20 GW solar farm tied to 36-42 GWh of battery energy storage, which is set to be transmitted by subsea cables to Singapore.

The town of Walpole on Western Australia’s southernmost tip will soon be powered by a pumped-hydro microgrid, a first for the state which is already renowned for its rollout of microgrids and distributed renewable solutions.

Commercially printed solar cell technology developed by the University of Newcastle is being put to the test to power an electric vehicle’s 15,097-kilometre journey around the entire coastline of Australia.

While a Japanese team developed a series of Er(Ho)Co2-based magnetic cooling alloys for hydrogen cooling, a US research team used a “simple” acid treatment to increase flow of hydrogen atoms within protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs). Hydrogen-fuelled mobility registered significant developments: the first hydrogen-electric passenger aircraft was piloted between two major airports in Germany, and a 75-passenger ferry service in the San Francisco Bay braces for operations in June.

The results from solar glass company ClearVue’s greenhouse trials at Murdoch University have found the company’s product performed better than predicted overall, demonstrating both strong power generation and thermal value.