New developments in Victoria to harness photovoltaic glass, battery power

Melbourne will be home to not one but two Australia-first initiatives to make living in an apartment cheaper and more environmentally sustainable. Tenants in apartment buildings could soon have access to solar power and battery storage if a new government-funded initiative is successful. Energy company Ovida will use $980,000 from the state government to retrofit three yet-to-be-selected buildings with solar panels on their roofs and connect extra power-infrastructure like batteries. That would produce power they would sell back to residents for a cheaper rate than grid power. The service would have no upfront cost, and the body corporate could buy the …

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New Printed Batteries To Transform Australian Renewables

Solar panels could soon be made with their own embedded battery storage in what is an Australian global first. Batteries would be laminated to the back of the panels and deliver “in-built” storage, making it eventually standard for them to deliver energy day or night as required. It’s one of several plans for ultra-thin, flexible screen-printed batteries that could eventuate within three years and offer new opportunities for manufacturing. Currently companies such as Tesla and South Australia’s Redflow offer solar panel and battery solutions, but the batteries are separate entities. If this idea takes hold, printed-on storage could be part …

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