Home Archive by category "Renewable Energy" (Page 4)

Category Archives: Renewable Energy

Remote community transformed after swapping diesel generator for solar panels

Graeme Smith was mulling over a long-standing problem at the end of 2015: how to provide affordable power to his tiny, off-grid community. Despite having freehold title to 170 square kilometres of land east of Tennant Creek and plenty of money in the bank, members of the Munungurra Aboriginal Corporation could not afford to live on their country as reported by ABC News. The cost of providing power to such a remote location prevented them building an economy on their land. “We originally had no power and no water, because we’re not on a grid. We put houses on it, …

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Lithium stocks boom in Australia’s clean technology sector

The boom in lithium stocks is overshadowing a broader recovery in the Australian clean technology sector as investor interest in renewable energies builds. Several lithium explorers and emerging producers have soared this year amid expectations of rising demand for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles. Energy-storage technology has become the latest hot sector in renewable energy and sparked renewed interest in global cleantech companies. After years of heavy losses, Australian cleantech stocks are collectively delivering strong returns and outperforming the sharemarket – a remarkable turnaround for a sector that has had many false starts and been battered by regulatory uncertainty. The Australian CleanTech …

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Large-scale hybrid project completed at Australian copper and gold mine

Work has been completed on Australia’s “largest solar and battery storage project to date”, a 10.6MW PV installation at a copper mine linked to 6MW of storage, according to developer Juwi. While it still uses diesel to run alongside the solar panels and batteries, the Germany-headquartered company claims the off-grid project will save the DeGrussa Copper and Gold Mine around five million litres of diesel fuel a year – around 20% of its current usage. The project’s construction began last summer, with support from Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). At the time, CEFC chief Oliver Yates said the project …

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Australia to use almost 40% renewable power by 2030

Nearly 40% of all Australian electricity generation will be from renewables by 2030, a report from consulting firm McKinsey has claimed. The report, released at the APPEA conference in Brisbane on Tuesday, said by 2030 up to 37% of Australian electricity could come from renewable sources. This compares to 14% in 2014. But across all fuel sources, including transport fuel, renewables are still only expected to make up about 5% by 2030. Using a “business-as-usual” approach the McKinsey report said despite an increase in renewables Australia was likely to miss Paris Climate Change Accords emission reductions. “In the power sector, …

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Visionary renewable energy projects that could pay off for Australia

Although there are numerous innovative projects seeking to improve the sustainability of Australia’s energy sector, one of the main barriers to making them happen is – as with most things – money. With the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) set to lose $1.3bn in unallocated funds, the agency has announced a raft of grants for green projects, including $17m for nine research and development projects that “have a pathway to being fully commercial” through industry partners as reported by Annie Kane. According to Arena’s CEO Ivor Frischknecht, the three-year projects all focus on integrating either more renewables or more energy …

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Clean energy – current market trends

Marco Stella is Senior Broker, Environmental Markets, at TFS Green Australia. The TFS Green Australia team provides project and transactional environmental market brokerage and data services across all domestic and international renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon markets. Here, Mr Stella outlines the current market trends. Large-scale Generation Certificate (LGC) market It has proven a mixed beginning to 2016 for the LGC market. A solid start across the first two months of the year saw the spot market climb into low $80 territory in February, only to soften back to a low of $75 by late March as buyers disappeared …

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Renewables Could Revitalise Australian Manufacturing says Shorten

Zero – that’s the number of times solar and renewable energy were mentioned in Treasurer Scott Morrison’s Budget speech on May 3. Opposition leader Bill Shorten fared better on that front in his Budget reply speech on Thursday evening. In the speech, Mr. Shorten said Labor views renewables as a means of giving new life to Australia’s manufacturing sector as reported by Energy Matters. “By 2030, there will be $2.5 trillion of investment in renewable energy in the Asia-Pacific. Australian workers should be collaborating with our universities and researchers to design, manufacture and export battery technology, solar panels and turbine …

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Australia large-scale renewable investment hits a low point

Australian investment in large-scale renewable energy projects fell sharply in the first quarter of 2016, more than six months after the Coalition government promised “certainty” after forcing Labor to agree to slash the renewable energy target to 33,000GWh. New data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance showed that investment in large-scale renewables – wind and solar – slumped to just $US69 million, falling back to levels seen in the midst of the investment freeze, when the then Abbott government sought to abolish the RET altogether, or seek bigger cuts. The impact in 2014 was so dramatic that large-scale investment actually dried up completely …

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Scientists use DNA to investigate cleaner energy sources

The key to unlocking cleaner energy might be in our DNA, according to a new study by Stanford scientists. By combining synthetic DNA with microscopic particles, Yuran Zhang and a team of geothermal energy researchers hope to tap into the widely available but often overlooked cleaner energy source all over the world. Geothermal energy is the heat of our Earth, and geothermal power is generated by extracting that heat and converting it to electricity. Effectively, the heat moves through irregular cracks or fractures deep underground, so geothermal engineers must have a detailed understanding of the underlying geology and the location …

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Renewable energy and the promise of nanotechnology

With the goal of bringing together experts from the fields of medicine, engineering, science, and technology, the Australian Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology officially opens its doors today at the University of Sydney. The institute’s Founding Director, Thomas Maschmeyer, is the recent developer a nano-structured battery gel. He hopes the gel can help restructure the power grid, putting a focus on renewable energy while helping to cut carbon emissions. Could Nanotechnology save the human race? The Australian Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology hopes to expedite the process. To listen to the podcast click here. Nanoscience and nanotechnology involve …

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