Clean energy startup MGA Thermal, has raised an additional $5.7 million to develop its thermal energy storage (TES) system. This round was backed by existing investors including Main Sequence and Melt Ventures with specialist clean tech investor JEKARA joining the cap table. The new capital tops up an $8 million in September last year. MGA Thermal has… Read more »
Green energy infrastructure startup National Renewable Network (NRN) has secured $10 million in funding as part of its ambition to provide low cost solar and battery setups to 250,000 Australian homes by 2030. The funding facility of up to $10 million has come from Catalytic Impact Capital, an impact/ESG-focused private credit business offering secured loan… Read more »
The $30 billion SunCable project, backed by Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brooks, wants to build the high voltage under power cable that will stretch from Darwin to Singapore at a manufacturing facility in Northern Tasmania. Bell Bay, 50km north of Launceston, at the mouth of the Tamar River, has been named as SunCable’s preferred site for… Read more »
Atlassian cofounder and billionaire investor Mike Cannon-Brookes has taken charge of the $30 billion SunCable solar power project he once labelled as “insane”, with the deal to buy it from the company’s administrators going through last week. Helietta Holdings a joint venture company affiliated with his family venture capital firm, Grok Ventures, in partnership with… Read more »
The annual ARENA Renewables Startup Showcase is heading to Melbourne this year, with applications now open for startups interested in taking part. Pioneering startup network Innovation Bay and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) have teamed up again for the fourth showcase, which takes place on Wednesday, November 1, at Cargo Hall in Melbourne. They’re looking for early… Read more »
Australia’s transition to renewables is gathering speed, but there’s a looming problem with storage. We will need much more long-duration storage to get us through the night, once coal and fossil gas exit the system. We also need to find new and better ways to create heat for industrial processes. Renewables can supply much of… Read more »
Sun Cable – considered to be the world’s biggest renewable energy export project – announced this week it had entered voluntary administration following “the absence of alignment” with shareholders. Sun Cable is expected to cost over A$30 billion. It proposes to build an enormous, 12,000 hectare solar farm in the Northern Territory, add an enormous… Read more »
Australian-born US-based solar panel design and sales platform OpenSolar has raised US$15 million (A$22m) in a Series B. Telstra Ventures led the round, announced last month, with support from sustainability fund 2150 and existing investors including Jeff Tannenbaum’s Titan Grove and solar entrepreneurs Alec Guettel and Howard Wenger. The funds will be used to expand… Read more »
A $30 billion project to send solar-generated power made in Australia to Singapore has been placed in voluntary administration (VA) amid a reported falling out between its key backers, the tech and mining billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Dr Andrew Forrest. Cannon-Brookes and Forrest are cornerstone investors in Singapore-based Sun Cable – the Atlassian co-founder through his private… Read more »
The venture capital arm of energy giant BP has tipped $20 million into Sydney solar array startup 5B, to close out its $55 million Series B. The additional funds from bp ventures end a 15-month capital campaign that saw the first $30 million secured in June, with the round being led by existing backers… Read more »
Renewable energy activist Mike Cannon-Brookes has succeeded in his campaign to shake up the board of energy giant AGL with shareholders voting at today’s annual general meeting to appointment four new directors to the AGL board on the recommendation of the Atlassian cofounder’s family VC firm, Grok Ventures. Former Energy Security board chair Kerry Schott,… Read more »
Renewable energy software platform Orkestra has raised $1.1 million in a Seed round to support large power companies roll out new projects. The raise was led by local seed stage VC Tidal Ventures with support from angel investors with links to the energy industry. The capital is will be used to expand Okestra’s team and… Read more »
It’s the end the line for coal in Victoria, after Victorian Premier Dan Andrews this week announced plans for 95% renewables within 13 years. Until now, the industrialised state has been aiming for 50% by 2030. But it’s also the end of the line for our ailing, mostly privatised, energy market. Public ownership is back… Read more »
US investment firm BlackRock is acquiring local battery storage developer Akaysha Energy as part of a deal to spend A$1 billion to develop 1GW (Gigawatt) worth of storage feeding into the National Electricity Market (NEM) in Australia. For perspective, that’s more than the power produced by Australia’s largest coal-fired power station, Origin Energy’s Eraring plant (2,880MW),… Read more »
The board of ASX-listed Genex Power Limited (ASX: GNX) have rejected a takeover bid by Altassian co-founder Scott Farquhar as undervaluing the business. Last Monday, after building up a 19.9% stake in Genex via a consortium controlled by Skip Capital, the family VC run by Farquhar’s wife Kim Jackson, in a partnership with US alternative… Read more »
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