Solar cell efficiency race is on

Solar cell efficiency: If you haven’t already heard, the solar cell efficiency race is on, and once you’ve dusted off your periodic table, it’s a race as scintillating as any big-ticket derby. The stakes, however, are much, much higher as reported by Ceridwen Dovey. The scientists who are globally acknowledged to be the best at developing solar cells – tweaking them, goading them to perform better at converting sunlight to electricity – have been quietly doing their work for four decades in a laboratory at the University of New South Wales, just up the road from Sydney’s Royal Randwick Racecourse. It’s here …

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Sustainability is the reason Ikea are selling bikes

Curtin University food and agribusiness marketing professor Peter J Batt said the likes of Nestle, Kelloggs and Heineken were making dramatic changes within the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative. “Sustainability is becoming mainstream,” Batt told HuffPost Australia. “Big multinationals are involved in the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative to say to their suppliers ‘I’ll only take your product if you can show me it’s farmed sustainably’.” Batt said this meant changes to farming methods, supply chains and attitudes to ethical issues. “There’s a saying that it’s hard to be green when you’re in the red,” Batt said. “Increasingly businesses are finding ways to be …

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Renewable energy fund: QIC, Future Fund back AGL

Renewable energy fund: Queensland Investment Corporation and the Future Fund are set to become major players in the race to meet the renewable energy target, backing a $2 billion-$3bn fund with diversified energy group AGL that will build up to a fifth of the new capacity needed. QIC and the Future Fund will tip $800 million into a fund that plans to build 1000MW of new wind and solar farms along the east coast in a deal that breaks a long-running deadlock between investors and energy retailers. AGL chief executive Andy Vesey said the fund, to be announced today, will …

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Boost to renewable energy target

Renewable Energy: Ross Israel from QIC and Andy Vesey from AGL Energy are the new breed of renewable energy evangelists. They view Australia’s renewable energy target as an opportunity to generate a mainstream discussion about decarbonisation of Australia’s power generation, while at the same time pioneering new methods of financing for large scale solar and wind projects as reported by the Financial Review. Vesey, who is chief executive of AGL, believes Australia is yet to seriously address the fundamental question of how to solve the problem of an oversupplied energy generation market. He takes every opportunity in public forums to …

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Developing reliable renewable energy sources

As the world’s population continues to grow, so does our consumption of natural resources. Many of these resources are non-renewable, so research into renewable sources of energy is vital. Research led by Bournemouth University’s Dr Zulfiqar Khan is tackling this issue through reducing corrosion, improving heat transfer and fluid dynamics, and using nano coatings to enhance surface effiencies in renewable energy systems as reported by Science News. The European Union’s (EU’s) Renewable Energy Directive states that the EU should be producing 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020; a challenging target for any country. Dr Khan’s research is …

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Victoria’s largest wind farm approved

Victoria has approved a new $650 million, 96-turbine wind farm as the state bids to become the nation’s renewable energy leader. But that could be hard to do if nothing is done to phase out coal-fired energy, the Greens say. The wind farm, in Dundonnell in the state’s southwest, will save an estimated 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year – equivalent to removing 170,000 cars from Victorian roads. The approval of the project means 300 direct and indirect jobs will be created during construction, and the turbines will generate 1000Gwh of clean energy each year. It’s enough to …

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SA Liberals pushing for all new wind farms to be assessed for their impact on the electricity market

All new wind farm projects would have to undergo an assessment to see how they would affect the electricity market before being approved, if changes proposed by the Opposition were adopted as reported by Lauren Novak. The move comes in response to concerns raised last week after major employers warned the State Government they were considering shutdowns because of wild fluctuations in energy prices. The instability was blamed in part on wild storms, demand interstate and delays in upgrading an interconnector with Victoria. Opposition Leader Steven Marshall added that South Australia’s “massive abundance” of renewable energy, such as wind and …

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Building the ‘New Economy’ With Sustainable Social Enterprise

There is a critical need for more diversity in business, and social enterprise could be the answer, writes Alan Greig, from the Social Enterprise Legal Models Working Group. Sustainable social enterprise can go a long way towards introducing the kind of “values” into capitalism that Kevin Rudd once made reference to in 2009 – “the values of equity, sustainability and community”. With the range of “values based” enterprises that are rapidly developing – many of them profiled in Pro Bono Australia News – social enterprise is already setting the pace in this direction. Social enterprise is changing the way we …

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Australia’s Largest Solar Crowdfunding Campaign a Success

For-purpose business, The People’s Solar has helped iconic Melbourne Not for Profit, the Abbotsford Convent raise $120,000 for its renewable energy project in the biggest crowdfunding project of its kind in Australia. The People’s Solar, part of Energy for the People, is a platform for delivering community-owned solar power to schools and Not for Profits as reported by Probono Australia. Director and co-founder Tosh Szatow told Pro Bono Australia News this was the biggest solar crowdfunding project of its kind in Australia to date. It was also the largest project his business has been involved in. “It’s really exciting. We’ve …

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A shift towards clean energy; Victoria’s renewables target

The Victorian Labor government has announced an “ambitious and achievable” Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET). This target will commit the state to generating 25% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020, and 40% by 2025 as reported by Dylan McConnell. While details of the VRET are yet to be fully fleshed out, it is set to be based on a similar mechanism to the scheme used in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which has managed to sidestep the uncertainty that has plagued the renewables industry in recent years. ACT deputy chief minister Simon Corbell called Victoria’s announcement “a game-changer”. …

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