Is this heart-shaped solar farm the world's most beautiful power plant?

An extraordinary heart-shaped solar farm is set to be built on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.

 This is how the heart-shaped solar farm on the Pacific
 island of New Caledonia will look like when completed. 

The 2MW “Heart of New Caledonia” is being built by solar company Conergy and should start producing power for 750 homes from early next year. The plant, comissioned by local beverage company Froico SA, is expected to save around 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over its projected 25-year lifetime and reduce the French overseas territory’s dependence on oil, gas and coal, which generate the majority of its power today.

The eye-catching heart-shaped installation is made up of 7,888 panels across the four-acre site on Grand Terre, New Caledonia’s largest island, with the design only visible from the air.

Read the story from The Guardian - “Is this heart-shaped solar farm the world's most beautiful power plant?”

Green light for solar farm at Girgarre

A solar farm has been given the green light to be built in Girgarre.

Campaspe Shire Council unanimously approved the 118 megawatt solar energy facility to be built at 1083 Mason Rd.

It is the second solar project approved in the shire in as many weeks.

The facility is proposed to be connected to the 66 kV Stanhope-Shepparton powerline that is owned and operated by Powercor.

The site will host up to 368 000 photovoltaic panels across 256 ha.

Although there were no objections to this application, council placed 30 conditions on the applicant, Leeson Group Projects, to ensure the best outcome for the community.

These include noise restrictions, car park construction requirements, hours of construction, muted colours, native vegetation retentions and stormwater disposal.

Cr John Zobec said this was another good opportunity for Girgarre.

‘‘The town is striving and moving ahead and this is another opportunity for the community and provides extra jobs, which the area really needs,’’ Cr Zobec said.

Story from Country News - “Green light for Girgarre farm.”

Nation’s biggest wind farm could be built between Geelong and Ballarat

The biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere will be built about 130 kilometres west of Melbourne, powering an estimated half a million homes a year by 2025, if the Andrews government gives the project the green light.

Graphic: Stephen Kiprillis

The proposed wind farm would sprawl across 167 square kilometres of farmland near the small town of Rokewood in south-west Victoria, about 40 kilometres south of Ballarat.

It would have 228 wind turbines, each 230 metres tall at their highest point. By way of comparison, just four skyscrapers in Melbourne are taller.

Read Adam Carey’s story from The Age - “Nation’s biggest wind farm could be built between Geelong and Ballarat.”

The story behind the Bos house, Australia's first solar-powered home

Making history was not on the agenda for Judy and Michael Bos when they built their solar-powered home 40 years ago.

The home attracted the attention of architects
and students, with tours run in the 1980s.

But amid fears of an oil shortage and an emerging trend to live "off grid," the Bos family decided that building Australia's first fully autonomous solar-powered home was the "logical way to go”.

"There was a lot of talk about the energy crisis and that oil was running out," Judy Bos said.

Sitting on a four-hectare block in Pearcedale, on Melbourne's south-eastern fringe, the Bos house was designed to be naturally cool in summer and warm in winter.

Read the ABC News story by James Oaten - “The story behind the Bos house, Australia's first solar-powered home.”

Victoria to turn to Tesla battery power in time for next summer

Two large lithium-ion batteries will be built and connected to the grid in regional Victoria this year, giving the state’s west a significant renewable energy boost in time for next summer.

Two large-scale batteries will be built in Kerang and Ballarat this year.

The batteries, which will store solar and wind-generated energy,  will be built near Ballarat and Kerang and will have a combined generation capacity of 55 MW and a combined energy storage of 80 megawatt-hours – giving them more than half the power of South Australia's gigantic 100MW Tesla battery.

Read Adam Carey’s story from The Age - “Victoria to turn to Tesla battery power in time for next summer.”

World’s second-most powerful battery after Tesla mooted for Top End

The world's second-most powerful battery could be built in the Top End as part of a plan to produce more renewable energy for the Northern Territory.

Elon Musk.

Territory Generation, the NT Government-owned corporation that runs power plants in the jurisdiction, wants to build a large-scale renewable energy storage system for Darwin and Katherine.

It has released an expression of interest for a 25 to 45 megawatt battery.

By comparison, the new Tesla battery in South Australia — the world's largest — is 100 megawatts, said Dr Ariel Liebman, from Monash University's Energy Materials and Systems Institute.

Read the ABC News story - “World’s second-most powerful battery after Tesla mooted for Top End.”

Energy transition in China and Australia

They expected the industrial era to end with the burning of the last coal.

Increasing awareness of the health implications
 of the carbon particles in the air, which can
cause heavy smog, is one of the internal drivers
 for China’s transition away from fossil fuels. 

Modern economic development has been built on intense use of fossil energy. Leading nineteenth and early twentieth century thinkers focusing on the future of human civilisation and the economy, from Jevons to Weber, thought that the benefits of the modern industrial economy depended on the availability of fossil energy to continue.

Australian pioneer of development economics Colin Clark noted in his seminal Conditions of Economic Progress in 1940 that we would need to find other sources of energy to allow modern economic development to continue after we had returned to the air as much fossil carbon as was consistent with stable atmospheric conditions.

Clark suggested that sustainable substitutes would be found for fossil energy, and that we seek them in the fast-growing Australian eucalypt or new technology built on recent developments in silicon physics.

Read the Pursuit story by Professor Ross Garnaut from the University of Melbourne - “Energy transition in China and Australia.”