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Energy
While demand for low-carbon technologies in the energy sector bounced back strongly in the second half of 2021, supply has struggled to keep up.
BloombergNEF says the cost of new-build onshore wind has risen 7% year on year, fixed-axis solar has jumped 14% and estimates for the global levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) or utility-scale PV and onshore wind rose to $45 and $46 per megawatt-hour (MWh), respectively, in the first half of 2022.
This is all against a backdrop of trade flow disruptions due to challenges in logistics and transportation, trade barriers, and a re-wiring of relationships following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Shipping rates from Asia – crucial for the delivery of solar panels, inverters, batteries, and the like – have fallen from their peak in September 2021 but are still five times higher than in 2019.
More recently, labour costs have started to rise and since February 2022, though the price of key metals, including aluminium, copper, cobalt, and molybdenum has dropped, they still remain relatively high.
But BNEF’s Amar Vasdev said the research organisation sees a return to long-term technology cost decline trajectories as demand continues to be strong, supply chain pressures ease and production capacity, particularly in China, comes back online.
RNE and its subsidiary Countrywide Hydrogen have signed a term sheet agreement with Tas Gas Networks and Tas Gas Retail to achieve 100% green hydrogen delivery to industrial customers.
The companies will explore the technical and commercial requirements of supplying customers with both 100% hydrogen and blends with natural gas.
This agreement will see the parties working together to explore the options to supply both industrial and residential customers with green hydrogen produced by Countrywide at the project, including utilising existing and new network infrastructure
It also provides the opportunity for Tas Gas Networks to become an equity participant in the project.
Tas Gas’s retail arm is the largest gas retailer in Tasmania supplying gas to more than 9,000 industrial, commercial, and residential customers, and will become the foundation retailer for the project.
Subject to necessary approvals and finalising commercial arrangements, the project is targeted to be online by Q4 2023.
LIT’s subsidiary, EnviroStream Australia, has received its first cash rebate from the Australian Government’s B-cycle Scheme for collecting, sorting and recycling of end-of-life batteries.
Envirostream is accredited by B-cycle as a collector, sorter, and recycler of batteries and has worked closely with B-cycle to implement the necessary requirements for the scheme.
The scheme became operational on January 4 2022 and provides rebates to accredited parties for eligible batteries collected, sorted, and recycled in Australia.
Envirostream and B-cycle are helping create a responsible battery lifecycle, by keeping batteries out of landfill where they can leak toxic materials into the environment.
GNX has a portfolio of more than $1bn of renewable energy generation and storage projects across Australia.
Shares shot up this morning in early trade on news that it has entered into an agreement for a new $16m subordinated debt facility with Infradebt for the 50MW Kidston Solar Project and the Jemalong Solar Project, both in operation.
Funds of the new facility will be used to refinance the existing subordinated loan facility with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).
This refinancing will enable Genex to retain a higher proportion of cash generated by its solar portfolio, particularly following recent strong merchant pricing in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Yesterday, PV1 lodged a referral submission to the Northern Territory Environment Projection Authority (EPA) for its proposed 2.8GW Tiwi H2 Project on the Tiwi Islands.
The proposal includes 100,000t per annum of green hydrogen for export into the Asia Pacific region.
This is the first stage of the NT EPA assessment process, with a decision on assessment level expected in October 2022.
PV1 managing director and CEO Martin Carolan said this referral submission demonstrates the company continues to prove up the case of compressed hydrogen as an export carrier to alternatives that require mega-scale and capital and energy intensive processes for conversion to transport and reconversion back to hydrogen.
Energy
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