12 August 2015, Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Key milestone passed at Australia’s biggest solar project. The first photovoltaic panels have been installed at Moree Solar Farm (MSF), Australia’s largest solar array currently under construction.The farm, on 280 hectares in northern New South Wales, will supply 140,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year – enough electricity to power 15,000 homes and abate 95,000 tons of carbon pollution each year. It will use a single-axis horizontal tracking system, allowing 222,880 solar panels to follow the sun for maximum efficiency. The first panels were installed in June and at last count almost 100,000 had been put in place. Read More here
Tag Archives: Renewables
11 August 2015, Renew Economy, Solar undercuts coal in India, as another bank quits Adani mega-mine. Another week, another couple of nails hammered into the coffin for the Australian coal mining and export plans of Indian conglomerate, Adani Group. The first came with the news on Monday night that Standard Chartered – one of the largest investment banks in the UK – has become the latest international financier to withdraw its support for the development of one of the largest new coal mines in the Southern Hemisphere, in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. In a statement released on Monday, Standard Chartered said both parties – the bank and Adani – had agreed to end the bank’s role in the Carmichael coal mine after an ongoing review of its feasibility and delays experienced by Adani in getting project approvals. Read More here
10 August 2015, Climate Network News, Clouds over China’s solar power industry. China is by far the world’s biggest producer of solar panels, but the industry could become a victim of its own success. The recent turmoil in China’s stock market has sent shockwaves through the country’s corporate sector, including its mighty solar power industry which in recent years has grown to dominate the world market. Harnessing solar energy is considered a key way of cutting back on fossil fuel use and of meeting the challenge posed by climate change. Seven out of the world’s top ten manufacturers of solar panels are China-based companies, together providing about 40% of global solar supplies. But now the industry’s future expansion is under threat as companies try to cope with too much production capacity, very low profit margins and crushing amounts of debt. In 2013 Suntech, a Chinese company which was at one time the world’s biggest manufacturer,went bust. International creditors are still trying to recoup millions lent to the company. Read More here
7 August 2015, Renew Economy, Cheaper renewables force closure of NZ’s last coal-fired power units. Utility-scale coal-fired power generation will soon be a thing of the past in New Zealand, after local gentailer Genesis Energy said it would close the last two coal-burning units at its coal and gas Huntly power station in Waikato, on the North Island, due to falling demand and lower-cost renewables. Stuff.co.nz reports that the 953MW plant’s remaining two coal-burning units – the two others have already been retired – will be shut down in 2018, after running “at the margin of the market” for a number of years, according to Genesis. Indeed, the gentailer said it had been on track to retire the four coal/gas fired “Rankine” units – which were commissioned in the early 1908s, when they were seen as less expensive than building extra hydropower – since 2009. “The development of lower cost renewable generation, principally wind and geothermal, investment in the HVDC link (the Cook Strait cable), and relatively flat growth in consumer and industrial demand for electricity have combined to reinforce the decision to retire the remaining Rankine units, which will deliver further operational efficiencies to Genesis Energy,” said Genesis chief executive Albert Brantley. Closure of the coal units – which Genesis said would mark the end of large scale coal-fired generation in New Zealand – is expected to produce operational and capital cost savings for the company of approximately $20 to $25 million a year.
The shuttering of the coal plants has been welcomed by NZ green groups, and – in stark contrast to Australian PM, Tony Abbott, and his response to the likely abandonment of the proposed Adani mega-coal mine project in Queensland – even by NZ Prime Minister John Key, who is reportedly “unsurprised” by the closures. “I mean, in a lot of ways it’s unsurprising because the costs actually for Genesis, with the ETS and the likes, means that probably in the long-term coalfire power plants aren’t the most sensible plants to have,” Key said. “From New Zealand’s emissions perspective, this is actually probably a good thing.” Read More here