Oceania

The All-Energy Australia 2018 exhibition & conference kicked off in Melbourne today. Safety of products and quality assurance was prominent in discussions at the country’s largest PV conference and trade show in its early hours. Big funding announcements at the opening plenary made headlines.

The global top three companies have not changed compared to the 2017 ranking. Still in the U.S., SMA has lost its pole position to Solaredge. Ingeteam, meanwhile, is capitalizing massively on stable growth in the utility-scale market, and jumps from rank 18 to fourth.

Germany’s innogy is all set to deliver its first utility-scale solar PV project in Australia. Preparation works and pre-pilling tests are currently underway, and main works are expected to commence this October.

What problems are being encountered and how to avoid them by learning from past mistakes? With booming installation rates across all segments of the Australian solar market, quality issues have been pushed to the fore, and quality assurance has become instrumental in shaping further uptake.

Researchers at Western Australia’s Curtin University have developed a low-cost and environmentally friendly method to capture solar power and produce clean fuels such as hydrogen.

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.

Solar battery systems should maintain power supply when the grid goes down. Right? Well, it’s not always that simple. A recent pv magazine Australia webinar, hosted in partnership with SMA, was looking into different homeowner needs and ways to install an emergency power or ‘full home backup’ system. Here are the answers to some of the webinar attendee’s questions.

German-headquartered project developer juwi Renewable Energy has inked an agreement with the University of Queensland to deliver a solar+storage hybrid power solution at its research station located in the Great Barrier Reef.

Although initially expected to deliver around 650 MW, Victoria’s first renewable energy auction has smashed the goal, delivering 928 MW of renewable capacity. Six projects will be developed in total, three wind and three solar, under the state’s renewable energy target. In a separate announcement, the Andrews government promised to provide half price solar batteries for 10,000 Victorian households, if re-elected.

The South Australian government will launch its Home Battery Scheme in October, which will offer South Australians subsidies of up to AU$6,000. In the wake of the government’s announcement, the German storage provider has revealed plans to manufacture up to 50,000 battery storage units at the former Holden site in Elizabeth, creating hundreds of jobs.