Hospitals, schools and railways in South Australia will be powered by an electricity retailer started up by billionaire steel trader Sanjeev Gupta, following the signing of an agreement between the state government and Gupta’s SIMEC ZEN Energy.

Construction on Australia’s first utility-scale wind, solar and energy storage hybrid project to be connected to the national grid is about to start near Hughenden in northwest Queensland.

The government of the state of South Australia has named four utility-scale energy storage projects which it will support with grants toward the total cost of development.

Applications made to the government of New South Wales in Australia for two solar farms totalling 285MW of capacity are open to comment from stakeholders and members of the public.

Australian large-scale renewables investor Lyon Group has confirmed it is selling three projects under development, totalling 800MWh of energy storage and 545MW of PV generation capacity, in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia.

Filipino firm Kennedy Renewable + Technology Corp has partnered with AC Energy to provide seven school campus buildings in the Island of Tawi-Tawi, south Philippines, with solar-plus-storage systems.

Amidst experiencing Model 3’s “production hell”, launching a semi truck, a new Roadster and a portable battery pack, Tesla’s work on a 129MWh energy storage system in South Australia appears on track to be completed in time.

Trade associations the Australian Solar Council and counterpart the Energy Storage Council have merged together to form the national Smart Energy Council.

Panellists at the opening day of Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Southeast Asia event in Bangkok warned that investors who come on board quickest are going to gain a huge advantage as solar-plus-storage starts to become viable at scale.