Presented by Energy Matters team member Virginia, we take a look at some of the stories from Australia and around the world recently added to our renewable energy news section.
In this episode, Virginia covers changes to Victoria’s solar feed in tariff, home solar power alive and well in Queensland, wind energy powers on in 2011 and a 10 megawatt solar farm for Western Australia.
In this episode:
– The Victorian government has announced a transitional feed in tariff rate of 25 cents per kilowatt hours for new applications lodged after the end of this month. The transitional program will operated from January. Read more.
– Queensland’s Minister for Energy and Water Utilities, Stephen Robertson has reaffirmed the state’s commitment to clean energy growth at the opening of the annual EcoGen Conference in September. Over 107,000 Queensland households are now receiving the feed in tariff. The Sunshine State now has over 500 megawatts installed capacity, the equivalent of over 140,000 standard 1.5 kilowatt home solar systems. Read more.
– The World Wind Energy Association’s half year report has revealed that over 18 gigawatts of new wind installations occurred during the first half of this year. China, USA, Germany, Spain and India combined account for 74 percent of global wind capacity. The number of countries now using wind power has grown from 83 to 86, with Venezuela, Honduras and Ethiopia the latest nations to be harvesting wind energy. By the end of June, global wind power reached 215 gigawatts, representing a growth of almost 23 percent. Read more.
– A 10 megawatt solar farm and a 55 megawatt wind power facility are to be built near Geraldton in Western Australia. The farms will be constructed by Verve Energy at a cost of over $200 million. The solar farm will utilize thin film solar panels and cover an area of approximately 80 hectares, generating around 28 gigawatt hours of electricity annually. The wind farm will consist of 22 x 2.5 megawatt GE wind turbines and is expected to commence operation in 2012. Read more.
