26 July 2024

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WA targets 6.5 TWh of renewables generation as part of federal deal (PV Magazine): ?Western Australia has inked an agreement with the federal government which will underwrite developers to build at least 6.5 TWh of new solar and wind power across the state. ?The federal support will also see it underwrite 1.1 GW of new energy storage capacity to provide additional stability and flexibility to the grid as it transitions to variable renewable energy. ?The announcement of the Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement coincided with the opening of registrations for the first Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) tender for Western Australia. ?This tender aims to deliver 500 MW of four-hour equivalent, or 2,000 MWh, of dispatchable capacity projects in the Western Australian Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM).

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“I’m not interested in the fanatics:” Dutton responds to science academy’s report on nuclear SMRs (Renew Economy): ?Opposition leader Peter Dutton has dismissed a report on nuclear small modular reactors by the highly respected Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, saying the Coalition has consulted its own experts and it is not interested in the views of “fanatics.” ?ATSE on Wednesday described SMRs as a “chimera”, and said they were unlikely to be able to be built in Australia before the mid to late 2040s, more than a decade before the Coalition’s timeline of 2035.

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One nuclear plant could see 45,000 rooftop solar systems shut off each day (Renew Economy): ?The extent to which the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plans clash with Australia’s world-leading rooftop solar uptake has been highlighted by new analysis that estimates tens of thousands of residential PV systems would have to be shut off on a daily basis to allow just one nuclear plant to operate. ?The Queensland Conservation Council report models the potential impact of nuclear power on the Sunshine State’s future grid by measuring it against the latest projections of the Australian Energy Market Operator’ in its’s 2024 Integrated System Plan.

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Qld premier raises problem of water risk under Dutton’s nuclear plan (Financial Review): ?Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan would require a plebiscite in Queensland, “substantial regulatory reform” and could risk the state’s water security, a government report has found. ?Analysis from Labor Premier Steven Miles’ department concluded a legislative overhaul would be needed for the Liberal-National opposition’s proposal to convert seven power plants across the country to nuclear, including Callide and Tarong in Queensland.

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WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam calls on State Government to oppose offshore wind farm developments (The West Australian): ?WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam is calling on the State Government to pressure their Federal counterparts to stop the development of offshore wind farms in the South West. ?But the State Government has hit back, claiming the Opposition party’s only plan is to keep burning coal until a nuclear power plant is built in Collie.

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CARBON MARKETS

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Australia spends on new tech to reduce ‘hard-to-abate’ emissions, cement the winner (Carbon Pulse): ?Australia on Tuesday announced A$65 million ($43 mln) in new spending on seven projects to support smaller, more nascent carbon capture, storage, and utilisation projects across the nation, with a focus on technologies to reduce emissions from the cement manufacturing process.

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ASX Environmental Futures contracts will be a tale of two credit types, carbon market participants say (Carbon Pulse): ?The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is set to launch futures contracts for the Australian and New Zealand carbon markets later this month, however participants say the level of participation and interest will vary considerably between the two jurisdictions.

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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

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Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion (The Guardian): ?A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals. ?The new oil and gas field licences forecast to be awarded across the world this year are on track to generate the highest level of emissions since those issued in 2018, as heatwaves, wildfires, drought and floods cause death and destruction globally, according to analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD); as part of the Rewiring the Nation fund, The Northern Territory and Australian government have signed a $250 million deal to upgrade the Territory’s grid and roll out new transmission projects by 2030, aiming to integrate more renewable energy and lower household power bills;

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GREEN PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES

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New rules will allow consumer energy to compete with coal and gas, make solar visible and power cheaper (RenewEconomy):? Virtual power plants, community batteries, flexible industrial loads and price-responsive small resources could soon compete directly with coal and gas power plants and big batteries, as part of proposed energy market rule changes that promise to slash the cost of electricity. ?In a draft determination published on Thursday, the Australian Energy Market Commission says the reforms would allow consumer-owned resources to bid into the spot market, set prices, receive dispatch instructions and earn revenue for grid services.

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Australia rated global leader in hybrid solar and battery energy solutions: whitepaper (PV Magazine): ?With more than 300 large-scale solar and battery storage projects in the pipeline, Australia has been identified as a global leader in hybrid solar and battery systems in a new whitepaper released by global energy company Hitachi Energy. ?The Accelerating utility-scale solar through hybrid systems paper looks at the drivers fueling the boom in solar power and other renewables, the challenges for the future power system, and the solutions available to connect renewable sources to the grid and manage more modular and distributed networks.

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Western Australia mine site to install hybrid power plant with 65 MW capacity (PV Magazine): ?Western Australia-headquartered remote power specialist Zenith Energy will finance, design, build, own, operate and maintain a hybrid power station at the Lynas Rare Earths Mt Weld mine, 35 kilometres southeast of Laverton, Western Australia. ?The hybrid power station will include a 7 MW solar farm, a 12 MW / 12 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), and a four-turbine 24 MW wind farm. ?The renewables system will be supported by a 17 MW gas-fired power station and 5 MW of standby diesel generation.

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Frontier Energy lands $215 million to fund Waroona renewable energy project (PV Magazine): ?Western Australia (WA) clean energy developer Frontier Energy has been granted $215 million (USD 141.6 million) in debt finance from infrastructure fund manager Infradebt for Stage One of its Waroona Renewable Energy Project (WREP). ?Located 120 kilometres south of Perth, the Stage One WREP will be a 120 MW solar farm with an integrated four-hour 80 MW / 360 MWh DC-coupled battery energy storage system (BESS).

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Alinta secures approval for second battery in WA’s southwest (PV Magazine): ?Alinta Energy announced it has secured approval to build a 300 MW battery energy storage system alongside a 100 MW / 200 MWh battery currently under construction at Wagerup in Western Australia (WA).? The Chinese-owned power utility said the battery energy storage system – the duration of which is yet to be confirmed – will enhance system security and stability as WA continues the introduction of intermittent energy sources, such as domestic and utility scale solar, into the grid.

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BrightNight secures grid approval for large-scale solar and battery project (PV Magazine): ?United States-based renewables developer BrightNight announced it has received approval from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) to connect its proposed Mortlake Energy Hub to the National Electricity Market (NEM). ?Being developed on an approximately 1,000-hectare site near Mortlake, about 200 kilometres west of state capital Melbourne, the Mortlake Energy Hub is to include a 360 MW solar farm comprising almost 800,000 solar panels, coupled with a 300 MW / 600 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

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Origin stage two battery approval elevates Eraring’s storage capacity over 2 GWh (PV Magazine): ?Construction of the second-stage 240 MW / 1,030 MWh four-hour duration grid-forming battery at Eraring Power Station in New South Wales (NSW) has been approved by site owner Origin Energy. ?The combined energy storage of the stage one and stage two batteries will be over 2 GWh enabling Origin to help keep the grid stable and support more variable renewable energy coming into the system.

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Equis wins connection deal for a 4 hour battery in Queensland (Renew Economy): ?Another four hour battery is set to be looped into the Queensland grid, with the Lower Wonga installation the latest to wring a connection agreement from the state transmission company. ?The four hour, 200 megawatt (MW) Lower Wonga battery energy storage system (BESS) is in Woolooga, near Gympie and the Sunshine Coast, and will cost $450 million, Equis says. ?The company is seeing market interest for both two- and four-hour batteries and has permission to build a battery at that maximum end of capacity. ?However, the final storage duration will depend on what kind of offtake agreements the company manages to secure, an Equis spokesperson says.

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Koorangie storage facility hits milestone with delivery of 100 Tesla Megapacks (PV Magazine): ?The $400 million (USD 263.8 million) Koorangie energy storage system (KESS), being built in northwest Victoria near the town of Kerang, has achieved a milestone with the delivery of 100 large-scale rechargeable lithium-ion Tesla Megapack batteries. ?The Tesla Megapacks are equipped with grid-forming inverters that will operate in virtual machine mode allowing the storage system to operate like a conventional generator and provide crucial system strength services to increase the renewable hosting capacity of the Murray River renewable energy zone (REZ).

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Northern Territory lands $250 million for new transmission projects and upgrades (PV Magazine): ?The Northern Territory (NT) and federal government have signed a landmark $250 million deal (USD 163.7 million) to upgrade and fund new transmission projects.? Propriety projects will support the Darwin-Katherine Interconnected System (DKIS), with potential for projects in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek to also receive support as part of the decarbonisation of the NT’s energy system.? The investment is made available through the $19 billion Rewiring the Nation (RTN) fund, administsered by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).

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Macquarie’s Eku gets green light for 500 MWh Canberra big battery (PV Magazine): ?The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government has announced the development application has been approved to deliver the first stream of the Big Canberra Battery project that is to support the ongoing rollout of large-scale renewables and rooftop solar.? The territory government said the two-hour capacity battery, to be deployed at Williamsdale on the ACT’s southeast border, will form part of a planned network of batteries that will be built throughout the city to form an energy storage ecosystem that can be coordinated and orchestrated to meet the needs of the grid.

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EnergyConnect exit leaves just months to turn around crucial grid link (Financial Review): ?The Spanish contractor hired to build most of a $2.3 billion high-voltage cable linking South Australia and NSW is expected to walk away from the troubled project by the end of September, leaving domestic construction firms to complete work on the vital infrastructure. ?The departure of Elecnor part-way through the construction of the 900-kilometre EnergyConnect project has created major complications for Transgrid, the operator of the NSW network, as it attempts to put it back on track.

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OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

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Timber venues, river swimming and re-use: how the Paris Olympics is going green – and what it’s missing (The Conversation): ?As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. ?The organisers have promoted Paris 2024 as the greenest Olympics ever, aiming to halve the carbon emissions of previous Olympics. ?They have drastically cut back on building new stadiums and venues, and have relied heavily on wood as a building material for new infrastructure and used low-carbon concrete. ?This approach has another benefit: it’s cheaper.

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Winter weather highlights bigger role for batteries (PV Magzine): ?The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Quarterly Energy Dynamics report shows battery contributions to meeting daily maximum operational demand in the National Electricity Market (NEM) increased to 1.3% in the June quarter, up from 0.5% in Q2 2023. ?AEMO’s quarterly report shows cold weather drove record demand in the NEM in the June quarter, reaching a maximum operational demand of 32,322 MW during the evening of 24 June, a 2 MW increase from Q2 2023’s maximum of 32,320 MW.

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Critical mineral report highlights Australia’s solar panel recycling potential (PV Magazine): ?A new report published by the CSIRO says Australia’s research into solar recycling is second in the world, outside China, but suggests the establishment of mid-stream activities such as the production of metallurgical silicon and polysilicon have big potential. ?Australia’s research, development and demonstration (RD&D) investment with international collaboration is key for Australia to develop mid-stream processing technologies for critical minerals, such as rare earth minerals and silicon used in solar cell and panel technology.

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Changing the green energy landscape (Business News): ?Vytas is cooking up an ambitious green hydrogen on-demand technology. ?METALS technology company Vytas has reached far back into the 1900s for inspiration as it seeks to revolutionise the green energy sector of the 21st century. ?There’s certainly no shortage of confidence in the Vytas camp, with managing director David Cornell telling Business News the company is poised to make a significant impact on the production, storage and use of energy.

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Forrest’s private Windlab sells big wind projects to Fortescue (Financial Review): ?Fortescue has quietly taken ownership of two Queensland wind farm projects previously owned by private companies controlled by its biggest shareholders, Andrew and Nicola Forrest. ?The Prairie and Wongalee wind projects near the Queensland town of Hughenden are now owned by Fortescue rather than subsidiaries of the Forrest family’s privately owned Squadron Energy, according to documents filed to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

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Sodium-ion batteries set to spark renewable energy revolution – and Australia must be ready (Renew Economy): ?The extent to which renewables should dominate Australia’s energy grids is a major issue in science and politics. ?Solar and wind are clearly now the cheapest form of electricity. ?But limits to these technologies can undermine the case for a renewables-only electricity mix. ?The challenges posed by solar and wind generators are real. ?They are inherently variable, producing electricity only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. ?To ensure reliable energy supplies, grids dominated by renewables need “firming” capacity: back-up technology that can supply electricity on demand.