Australia

Chinese manufacturing giant Trina Solar says it could start making panels in Australia as soon as 2027 as part of its joint-venture plans with Sydney-based PV innovator SunDrive Solar.

Rooftop solar installations in Australia recorded a 6% jump in October, with the latest monthly data revealing that 279 MW of small-scale rooftop PV capacity was installed on household and business roofs across the country last month.

Origin Energy has started building the second stage of its AUS 450 million ($295.7 million), 240 MW/1,030 MWh four-hour duration battery at the Eraring Power Station, 120 km north of Sydney, Australia.

Australia’s scientific research agency CSIRO has taken its pilot-scale production of flexible printed solar film to a new level following the official launch of the new Printed Photovoltaic Facility in southwest Melbourne, Victoria.

Rooftop solar led renewable generation in Australia in the third quarter of 2024, accounting for 38.5% of the total, compared to grid-scale solar at 18.3% and wind at 13.4%. New capacity in the connection phase rose 36% and battery projects grew 87% from the same quarter in 2023, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

Morocco and TE H2 have agreed to reserve land for the Chbika hydrogen project in Morocco. They aim to build 1 GW of solar and wind capacity to annually produce 200,000 tons of green ammonia for the European market.

Australian battery tech company Li-S Energy has announced a major improvement in the performance of its lithium-sulfur battery technology, with its latest iteration achieving an energy density close to 500 Wh/kg.

Although local defects in chloride-iodide-based perovskite are hard to avoid due to ion migration, a group of scientists have now found a way to passivate them. They used different combinations of 4-chlorobenzylammonium chloride and 4-chlorobenzylammonium bromide beneath the hole transport layer and reached up to 15% improvement in efficiency.

Supporting First Nations people to effectively engage in and benefit from the energy transition is a timely priority for Australia’s emerging Net Zero Economy Authority, which is tasked with facilitating investments nationwide. pv magazine Australia’s Ev Foley finds the road to clean energy for remote communities can be long and hard, but possible. In the Pilbara, a First Nations group is blazing a trail as a developer of a 3 GW renewables pipeline.

SunBrush Mobil GmbH plans to develop a mechanically simple robotic solution designed to maximize utility-scale solar module yield by removing soiling. Once complete, the company will market this technology for commercial rooftop systems in Australia.