Australian Energy Market Commission

Maoneng has revealed plans to build a 225 MW/450 MWh utility-scale storage system in South Australia.

Plus, solar funding is down and Australian rooftop installers are preparing for tough times ahead as one U.S. utility has warned customers to be alert to scammers hoping to benefit from the pandemic.

The Australian network regulator has ignored pleas from some of the biggest solar and wind project owners in Australia to change the way marginal loss factors (MLFs) are calculated. While it has acknowledged that transmission has failed to keep pace with renewable energy investment, it did not offer any suggestions on what should be done to ameliorate the problem.

Renewable energy developers and investors have told Australian industry body the Smart Energy Council ‘they’re done. The sovereign risk in Australia is too great,’ according to the organization’s government relations manager, Wayne Smith. With prospects, employment and energy prices in jeopardy, the trade organization has vowed to petition policymakers for a bankable plan.

A new survey by the Melbourne-based Clean Energy Council shows that confidence in new clean energy investment has continued to weaken over the past six months. While a majority of Australian industry representatives expect to hire more people over the next 12 months, the biggest challenges to developing new projects remain unchanged, with the grid connection process, technical requirements, and policy uncertainty at the top of their list of concerns.

A recent project milestone saw the disconnection of properties from overhead lines and will enable 64km of poles and wires to be replaced by off-grid solar-plus-battery solutions.