Category Archives: Renewable energy

Victoria to build $370m state-owned solar farm and battery in state’s west

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Jacinta Allan says project will be able to power more than 51,000 homes and include 119MW solar facility and 100MW two-hour battery

The Victorian government will spend $370m to build a massive solar and battery farm able to power more than 50,000 homes, which it says will be the first state government-owned energy project since the electricity grid was privatised in the 1990s.

Jacinta Allan announced the new project in Horsham, in Victoria’s west, which is the second investment made by the government-owned State Electricity Commission.

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Subsea cables to help Britain meet green energy goal get green light

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Ofgem gives green light to five interconnectors capable of powering millions of homes

Projects to lay five subsea power cables capable of powering millions of homes have been given the green light as Great Britain prepares to use its giant offshore windfarms to become a net exporter of green electricity in the 2030s.

The energy regulator, Ofgem, has approved three subsea cable projects linking Great Britain to power grids in Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland to help share renewable electricity across borders.

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Keir Starmer to unveil ambitious new UK climate goal at Cop29

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Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action

Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee, according to three people familiar with the matter.

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Tory former energy secretary facing conflict of interest claim over JCB owner links

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Shadow cabinet secretary Claire Coutinho accepted donation from Lord Bamford while overseeing millions awarded to his family businesses in green grants

A Conservative former cabinet ­minister who took donations from the billionaire boss of the JCB digger dynasty – including a £7,000 trip on his VIP private helicopter – oversaw decisions to award his family’s business empire millions in taxpayer-funded green energy grants.

Claire Coutinho also posed for ­pictures promoting Lord Bamford’s personal £100m hydrogen engine project and accepted a £7,500 donation from JCB to her local election campaign while she was the energy secretary in Rishi Sunak’s government.

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Britain’s green energy pledge ‘credible’ if planning fixed, says system operator

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State-owned Neso says Britain could be net exporter of green electricity by end of decade at no extra cost

A plan to create a clean electricity system by 2030 promised by Labour before the election is “immensely challenging” but still “credible” if ministers take urgent action to fix Britain’s sluggish planning system, the energy system operator has said.

Britain could become a net exporter of green electricity by the end of the decade at no extra costs to the energy system under the plans and bills may even fall if ministers make the right policy changes, according to the operator.

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Sweden scraps plans for 13 offshore windfarms over Russia security fears

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Decision comes after military concludes projects would complicate defending Nato’s newest member against attack

Sweden has vetoed plans for 13 offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea, citing unacceptable security risks.

The country’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Monday that the government had rejected plans for all but one of 14 windfarms planned along the east coast.

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Australia’s thirst for power drives a rise in coal and gas-led emissions for third quarter in a row

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Output from gas plants up 29% on average from a year earlier, Aemo says, even though price was up by a fifth over same period

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s main electricity grid increased for a third quarter in a row as higher power demand drove more use of black coal and gas plants, the Australian Energy Market Operator says.

For the September quarter alone, emissions from the national electricity market (Nem) that serves the eastern states and South Australia rose 2% from a year earlier, Aemo said in its quarterly market report.

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Plan to put solar panels on all new English homes could be scrapped

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Long-delayed regulations may ‘encourage’ housebuilders to equip homes with solar panels, rather than requiring them

Labour is considering making solar panels optional on new homes in England, after pressure from housebuilders, in a move that would weaken low-carbon regulations, the Guardian has learned.

Ministers are preparing to publish long-delayed regulations for new homes, known as the future homes standard, which would ensure that all newly built homes are low-carbon.

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Anti-fossil fuel comic that went viral in France arrives in UK

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World Without End topped bestseller lists but was criticised for embracing nuclear power

In 2019, France’s best known climate expert sat down to work with its most feted graphic novelist. The result? Perhaps the most terrifying comic ever drawn.

Part history, part analysis, part vision for the future, World Without End weaves the story of humanity’s rapacious appetite for fossil fuel energy, how it has made possible the society people take for granted, and its disastrous effects on the climate.

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Energy prices soar after volatile wind saw heavier gas, hydro and battery use, Australian regulator says

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But wholesale prices are down by 25% compared with the June quarter in New South Wales, down 9% in Victoria and down 12% in Tasmania

Wholesale power prices across much of eastern Australia were sharply higher in the September quarter from a year earlier because of increased reliance on gas, hydro and batteries, the Australian Energy Regulator said in its quarterly report.

Average prices ranged from $114/megawatt-hour in Queensland to $201/MWh in South Australia. The biggest year-on-year increases were in Tasmania, with prices up 290%, Victoria’s increasing 114% and SA’s 76% higher.

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Great British Energy can become a major power generator, says its chair

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Jürgen Maier’s vision for company includes the potential to borrow its own money in order to rival multinationals

Britain’s new national energy company will eventually become a major power generator, running its own windfarms, tidal power and carbon capture schemes and potentially borrowing its own money, according to its new chair.

Jürgen Maier, the chair of Great British Energy (GBE), told the Guardian in an interview that his vision for the company far outstrips its current scope and would put it on a par with multinational firms such as Denmark’s Ørsted or Sweden’s Vattenfall.

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‘I love the smell of success more than petrol’: investors break with tradition in world-leading climate campaign

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Investors say climate change poses biggest risk to their assets, and urge Albanese government to see the economic dangers of a slow path to net zero

Institutional investors dealing with portfolios in the trillions of dollars aren’t typically the most vocal climate campaigners. You won’t find many superannuation fund staff, fund managers, asset consultants or brokers with a placard on the streets or on top of a Newcastle coal train.

But you may increasingly find them on a screen you’re watching. Or at least their message.

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UK ‘risks repeat of surging energy bills’ amid continued reliance on gas

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Energy crisis panel warns country is ‘dangerously unprepared’ and must shift away from gas quickly

Britain is at risk of experiencing a repeat of the sharp increase in energy costs which has fuelled the continuing cost of living crisis because it relies too heavily on gas, according to an expert panel of industry leaders.

The Energy Crisis Commission has warned that the UK is still “dangerously underprepared” for another crisis because it continues to rely on gas for its power plants and home heating.

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Some Australian states are discovering what happens when they have too much rooftop solar

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Alerts to possible power shortfalls have become a familiar occurrence. But experts say it won’t be long before the opposite is common

When Victoria basks in mostly sunny spring weather this weekend, energy authorities will be monitoring how far electricity demand ebbs. If needed, they’ll turn off rooftop solar systems to ensure stability for the grid.

Such minimum system load events, as they are called, have emerged as a new challenge as households across Australia take advantage of plunging prices for solar panels to shield themselves from rising power bills and cut carbon emissions.

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China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years

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IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030

China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.

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The deep history of British coal – from the Romans to the Ratcliffe shutdown

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With the last coal-fired plant closing today, we chart the rise and fall of the once-indispensable fuel which powered modern Britain

Britain’s transition to a low-carbon future has reached a milestone with the closure of its last remaining coal-fired power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire.

The shutdown of the 57-year-old power plant on Monday ends more than 140 years of coal power generation in the UK – an industrial story closely interwoven with Britain’s socioeconomic and political history.

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Greens MP invokes Whitlam in public housing push – as it happened

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Plibersek approves three coalmine expansions

We have more on environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s approval of three coalmine expansions on Tuesday from Graham Readfearn here.

There’s a range of everyday common health conditions that are unnecessarily blocking up our emergency departments and contributing to those wait times to see our precious general practitioners.

We would love to see more GPs. Who doesn’t love their local family doctor? My wife and I and our children certainly do. But we all know how difficult it is to not only find one, find one that bulk-bills, but find one that hasn’t closed their books and can take an appointment. That’s not just in the bush, that’s in our major capital cities as well, whether it’s after 6pm or on a weekend, when your local pharmacy is open.

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‘You basically have free hot water’: how Cyprus became a world leader in solar heating

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The country, which has more 300 days of sunshine a year, has embraced rooftop systems that harness the sun’s energy

The Thriamvos company truck pulls up at noon outside the four-storey building in the heart of Nicosia.

It’s the third rooftop installation of a solar-powered water heating system that Petros Mihali and his assistant, Soteris, have made in the Cypriot capital since their working day began at 7am.

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Labor push for vote on help-to-buy bill delayed in Senate – as it happened

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White House marks three years since signing of Aukus agreement

Happy three-year anniversary of the signing of Aukus, to those who observe.

Three years ago, President Biden and our Australian and United Kingdom partners committed to Aukus, an enhanced security partnership that promotes a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable.

As this partnership has grown, it has strengthened the security of our allies in the region as well as our own security here at home. Over the past three years, our countries have made significant strides in supporting Australia’s acquisition of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability.

That is bad news for Australian solar homes.

To create space for inflexible nuclear power plants ramming energy into the grid, millions of household solar systems will be the first casualty.

Solar power is already being switched off in South Australia when it makes so much free power available that it exceeds electricity demand.

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‘Not on my watch’: how windfarms became a key issue in NSW local elections

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From Port Stephens to Illawarra, council candidates are running against renewable schemes because of ‘lack of consultation’

Part of what’s driving Mark Watson’s pitch for mayor is his opposition to a project he says is the talk of the town and the “biggest issue” in his coastal home’s history.

The former One Nation candidate for the state government is now running as an independent for mayor of Port Stephens. The coastal town just north of Newcastle overlooks the middle of the 1,800-square kilometre offshore windfarm zone off the Hunter, where the Albanese government plans a renewable energy hub to be operating by 2030.

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