Solar

A funding model based on 'revolving loans' has helped develop 35kW of community solar projects around Australia.

New development to create 337kW solar suburb, producing 600,000kWh of electricity a year and saving Defence members more than $4.1m in electricity costs.

100kW solar array installed at Sydney car dealership, including parking area, to help cut power bills by half.

Australian battery technology developer Redflow says it has made the first Australian sale of its commercial large scale energy storage system, albeit to its own company director Simon Hackett, the tech guru who will install it in a renovated office complex in Adelaide as part of longer term plans to take the office off-grid. Redflow […]

Not many people associate fast food with clean energy. But that’s exactly what one of the largest quick-service restaurants in the world is exploring. RMI recently completed a net-zero-energy study for McDonald’s, which explores how to offset the energy consumption of an entire restaurant with renewable energy. Working alongside the net-zero-energy visionaries at New Buildings Institute (NBI) and […]

A new website has been launched to help Australia’s solar industry shift its focus from the household market to the relatively untapped market of commercial solar installations. Developed by solar analysts SunWiz and launched on Thursday, the commercial solar database has gathered data on more than 3,500 solar projects to give the industry a better […]

Everyone, it seems, agrees that battery storage is the next big thing to affect global energy markets. What is not agreed upon is the timing. Some think this may happen in a few years, others in a decade or more. Some think it is happening now. The big question for many is how quickly battery […]

The market for large-scale renewable energy projects may well be at a standstill in Australia, but at the community level, things are happening quickly. Dozens of projects have emerged as state governments tap into local ideas, offering grants for innovative projects that allow solar and other renewables to be developed at a local level, for […]

Six community energy projects in northern NSW have been awarded grants by the NSW government – including a range of solar, bio-gas and mini-hydro projects, and including one to take a whole village of 300 people off grid with renewables. They are among 19 groups to share some $846,000 in the latest round of funding […]

Byron Shire – in the northern rivers region of New South Wales – is aiming to become the first region in Australia to become “net zero emissions”, with a goal to reduce emissions from energy, transport, buildings, waste and land use to zero within 10 years. The push by Byron mayor Simon Richardson means that […]

A NSW community renewable energy group has won a $50,000 state government grant to investigate the feasibility of building what would be Australia’s largest community-owned solar project – a 1MW solar farm in the southern tablelands city of Goulburn. One of 19 recipients to share in a $846,000 round of funding from the NSW Office […]

Development groups Lend Lease and LandCorp are to pioneer a major community-level battery storage pilot that could change the way that residential communities source energy, including not being connected to the grid. The pilot project at Alkimos Beach, a sustainable community develop in the northern suburbs of Perth, will include 1.1MWh of lithium ion battery […]

Byron shire is to become the first council in Australia to trial “virtual net metering” in what could presage a dramatic change in the way electricity is produced, but also in the role that networks play in the distribution of that electricity. Virtual net metering – also known as peer-to-peer trading – allows the excess […]

Yet another local government group has taken Australia’s renewable energy task into its own hands, with the mid-north coast NSW Coffs Harbour City Council committing to a renewable energy target of 100 per cent by 2030. The move puts Coffs Harbour City on the same page as fellow NSW local governments, like Lismore, which last […]

In the wake of Tropical Cyclones Olwyn and Pam – the devastating 250km/h winds of the latter resulting in Vanuatu’s ‘worst natural disaster in living memory’ – we are reminded of how vulnerable centralised electricity grids are to increasingly intense extreme weather events. In Australia, the category three Cyclone Olwyn tore through the WA towns […]

Another Bass Strait island is set to begin the shift to renewables, with Hydro Tasmania confirming it would soon start developing a “hybrid energy hub” combining wind, solar and storage on Flinders Island – an off-grid community 54 kilometres off Tasmania’s north east coast. Hydro Tasmania, which has had great success with a similar project […]