Australia

Plans to build a 5 GW/120 GWh pumped hydro energy storage system in Queensland’s Pioneer Valley have received a positive boost with geotechnical investigations revealing the site is ideally suited for dam and tunnel construction.

University of New South Wales researchers have created vortex generators that can reportedly reduce the operating solar module temperature by up to 2.5 C. They built two different prototypes, based on aluminum and a conductive 3D printable polymer, and tested them under several scenarios in an experimental setting deployed in Sydney.

Modular solar specialist 5B’s pre-assembled and relocatable Maverick solar solution has been unfolded in another off-grid hybrid renewable energy project as the decarbonisation of Australia’s mining sector continues.

Renewables developer Frontier Energy has boosted the storage duration of its 80 MW Waroona Renewable battery by 12% to 4.5 hours

Nexa Advisory says sluggish rooftop solar and battery storage uptake by businesses in the Australian state of New South Wales points to a 7 GW missed opportunity, and 28 GW nationally.

The pipeline of pumped hydro storage projects in the Australian state of Queensland continues to grow, with Victoria-based renewables company BE Power announcing plans to develop an 800 MW/9.6 GWh project at Mount Alma near Gladstone.

The result is the best efficiency ever recorded for a carbon-based PV cell using unconventional hole transporting materials to date. The device was built with a hole transparent layer based on electrochemically produced large-area phosphorene flakes, which reportedly enable the required band energy alignment within the cell.

After a six-year delay, the 60 MW Kennedy Energy Park in Australia – hailed as the nation’s first fully integrated, utility-scale solar, wind, and battery project – has finally achieved full commercial operations.

Researchers in Australia have developed a new class of solid electrolytes for rechargeable aqueous zinc-iodine batteries, which has allowed for extended lifespan and high-efficiency. Symmetric cells employing this electrolyte have demonstrated excellent cycle performance, maintaining stability for approximately 5,000 hours at room temperature, while all-solid-state ZnI2 batteries exhibit over 7,000 cycles with a capacity retention exceeding 72.2%

A research team in Australia has used a lamination technique known as cold isostatic pressing (CIP) to build a perovksite solar cell based on a flexible bilayer electrode made of carbon and silver that can reportedly compete with gold-carbon eletrode based counterparts in terms of efficiency and stability.