Australia

Just days after Tesla announced it was taking orders – and down-payments – for its much-hyped and quite good looking solar roof, an Australian made printed solar innovation that could rival Elon Musk’s power generating tiles has moved one major step closer to commercialisation.

Sydney-based energy infrastructure specialist APA Group has selected RCR Tomlinson as the EPC contractor for a 110 MW solar project in the town of Dalby, Queensland. The contract is valued at roughly A$175 million ($129.3 million).

The Clean Energy Finance Corp. (CEFC) will provide AU$60 million ($44.5 million) in financing to RATCH-Australia to turn an idled coal-fired plant in Collinsville, Queensland, into a 42.5 MW solar array.

The Australian state’s Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has drafted recommendations for voluntary solar feed-in tariffs (FITs) for 2017-18. It has proposed a benchmark range of AU$0.116 to AU$0.146/kWh, from AU$0.055 to AU$0.072/kWh in the preceding 12-month period.

Palisade Investment Partners (Palisade) and ESCO Pacific (ESCO) have selected Sydney-based Downer EDI to handle EPC duties for the A$200 million ($150.5 million) Ross River solar project in the state of Queensland.

The company aims to build what would be one of the country’s largest PV arrays near a high-voltage substation in Queensland’s Lower Wonga region. Via the substation, the project would supply electricity to cities and towns such as Gympie, Gin Gin, Teebar Creek, Mungar, Kilkivan and Brisbane.

The Australia residential storage market is booming on the back of a combination of regulatory changes and market dynamics. However, with upwards of 30,000 systems set to be plugged in this year, the influence of early adopters deploying solar+storage to new installations remains a dominant driving force in the current market.

The world’s biggest solar and battery storage plant – and Australia’s biggest solar farm – could begin construction this year, after the project was formally launched in Adelaide on Thursday.

Contracts have been inked for the Albuquerque-headquartered manufacturer of solar tracking systems to supply Neoen Australia’s three recently announced solar power plants with a combined 130 MW capacity.

First Solar closes another Australian project, to supply the Manildra Solar Farm project. The project reached financial close today, with RCR O’Donnell Griffin named as EPC. Construction is set to commence within three months.