PV investment confidence continues to slide in Australia
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.
Australian coal generator undercut by rooftop solar boom
The authorities in Western Australia have revealed that two units at Synergy’s Muja Power Station will be retired from October 2022. The state government said the coal-fired units were only being used about 35% of the time, largely because rooftop solar has reduced demand on the grid.
National program to drive virtual power plant participation in Australia
The scheme will test the potential of distributed energy resources such as rooftop systems, battery storage and controllable load devices aggregated into VPPs to provide scalable energy and network services traditionally performed by large scale, conventional electricity generators. With registration open, the Australian Energy Market Operator wants VPPs to register to accelerate shared learning.
Australia will need 15 GW of utility scale storage by early 2040s
Increased storage and strategic transmission development will be needed to ensure the most economic and lowest risk transition of Australia’s energy system, the Australian Energy Market Operator said in its latest study. In 20 years’ time, the need for storage will be at a scale not seen before in the national electricity market, and pumped hydro and distributed storage are set to play major roles in lowering electricity prices and building a reliable and resilient power system.
From laggard to leader: New South Wales Labor party’s election pledge for extra 7 GW of renewables
Australia’s Smart Energy Council welcomed yesterday’s launch by the NSW Labor party of a policy to drive 7 GW of renewable energy into the National Energy Market by 2030 as “the biggest rollout of renewable energy in Australia’s history”.
‘Renewable energy is the way of the future’
The Australian states of Victoria and South Australia suffered blackouts at the end of last week as a heatwave drove up air conditioning power demand and coal-fired power stations couldn’t cope. Extreme weather is debunking arguments for new fossil fuel generation and signalling energy security lies in renewables.
