RET

By this time next year we may be able to wave goodbye to that old chestnut about renewables endangering security of supply. Elsewhere, the price of lithium – and the products it goes into – could go either way after tanking this year.

As India awaits the results of the world’s largest democratic election on Thursday, and the EU begins to go to the polls on the same day, pv magazine Australia considers the “miracle” victory by a right-wing Liberal-National coalition in Australia at the weekend, and finds the nation’s solar sector has little reason to rejoice.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has announced there will be no replacement for the nation’s renewables target, casting a long shadow over investment predictability in the Australian renewable energy sector.

Ignoring opposition appeals for cross-party support on clean energy policy ‘because Labor wants to drive up energy prices’ Australia’s ruling coalition will introduce an energy policy that features no emissions reduction targets.

The booming large scale and rooftop PV market in 2018 is providing reasons to be optimistic about the future of solar under the Australian sun. Reflecting on his six-year tenure as CEO at ARENA ahead of his departure in August, Ivor Frischknecht points to the role the agency played in bringing down the costs of large scale solar as ARENA’s greatest achievement.

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.