Innholdsfortegnelse for 174 / Jan-Mar 2026 i Renew Magazine

Western Australia's electrical grid is not connected with the rest of the country, and forms the largest independent grid on the planet, known as the South West Interconnected System (SWIS). Like the rest of the country, rooftop solar has taken off there in a big way, with over 41% of all residences now having a system on their roof, and renewable generation reaching a new record of almost 56% of total generation for all of November 2025. But, with all that solar input, there has been an excess of renewable energy in the middle of the day, and so a number of big batteries have been installed or are in the process of being so. This has helped shift the energy mix towards renewables, in particular displacing gas generation at…

Air New Zealand has teamed up with Vermont-based electric aviation company Beta Technologies to undertake a four-month demonstrator programme of Beta's ALIA CX300 electric aircraft to evaluate its potential for shorter domestic flights inside New Zealand. The aircraft, which is rated to carry five passengers, has been leased by Air New Zealand for four months. Air New Zealand pilots Andrew Mercer and James Owen will work alongside BETA's flight operations and engineering team to undertake flights in a range of conditions, flight manoeuvres and routes, to build knowledge and training systems. With 60% of Air New Zealand's regional flights being less than 350km, the ALIA, with it's maximum range of up to 398km, is ideal for the task. Air New Zealand plans to fly routes of up to 200km as…

Australia's transition to an energy grid powered by renewables is well underway. In the third quarter of 2025, renewable energy sources made up a record 42.7% of Australia's National Electricity Market1. But while the progress made so far has been significant, there's still a long way to go to meet the ambitious emissions reduction targets needed to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change. Australia urgently needs to build a significant amount of renewable energy infrastructure in a short period of time, but this urgency doesn't mean that all other considerations should be thrown to the wayside in favour of speed. If nature isn't front and centre of the energy transition, we risk forging a double-edged sword—destroying desperately needed habitats, accelerating biodiversity loss and harming our unique and precious ecosystems…

Most city dwellers think of the Kimberley as distant, remote, sparse and somewhere they would love to see one day. Increasing numbers are making the trek from ‘down south’ in the dry season. But for the people who live here, and especially the descendants of the people who have lived here for 60,000-plus years, it's just home. And a stunning home it is, too. Now, the place and its people are moving inexorably into a sustainable energy future. Solar power transition off diesel generators The immediate motivation to run remote communities on renewable energy is financial: diesel is painfully expensive up here, and in the wet season from November to April, deliveries to remote communities and stations are unreliable. Mount Barnett Roadhouse on the Gibb River Road is the gateway…

Dr Danie Nilsson is on a mission to inspire seven million home energy retrofits across Australia, and she's doing it through the power of science-based storytelling. It's a worthy challenge. Our housing stock is one of the worst in the developed world. Over 80% of Australian homes have a NatHERS rating of 2 stars or less, with an average being just 1.7. Our leaky houses are stifling in summer, freezing in winter, and cost up to six times more to run than modern, efficient homes. Over the past few years we've seen solar technology skyrocket in efficiency and battery storage plummet in price. Done right, retrofits can slash energy bills by up to 40%. Yet despite all the technological breakthroughs, millions of Australians are still bleeding money through drafty walls,…

To date, the small EV market has been just that: small! EV manufacturers have been falling over themselves to offer Australians an ever-expanding range of medium to ultra-large cars (particularly SUVs) with the smallest end of the passenger segment left languishing until recently, with only two relatively expensive or niche offerings—these being the Fiat 500e and the Mini Cooper SE. In addition, there are a couple that look small but aren't, such as the GWM Ora. The reason manufacturers offer for this skewed marketing is that “Australians want large cars” or “Australians want SUVs, not passenger cars’’. That, however, is not my experience from the many public talks I give. I am getting a growing chorus of questions like, “When will I be able to buy a reasonably priced, small…

As more EVs take to our roads, their future availability for battery upcycling, where the battery can be used for another purpose without sending it to recycling, will increase and the cost will reduce. A popular misconception is that batteries removed from damaged vehicles are also likely to be damaged or at risk. This is usually not the case, and the batteries are often perfectly serviceable in other applications. It's worth noting that the vast majority of EV write-offs where the battery can be salvaged are from vehicles that have had low speed accidents setting off restraint systems such as airbags, resulting in costly repair estimates. Insurance companies are writing the vehicles off instead of choosing to repair, and this gives the opportunity to source high-capacity EV batteries in good…

Ingredients 3 Tbsp salt 1 Tbsp olive oil 3 cups vegetable scraps and herbs, e.g. garlic/garlic skins onion skins/tops/tails celery, including leaves carrot, including the leafy tops zucchini pumpkin (not seeds) leek spring onion mushrooms broccoli cauliflower parsley, including stems sage bay leaves rosemary (Use a mix of any of these, based on what you have. Each batch might end up slightly different, but that can be great!) Method Sterilise your jar and lid by either boiling for 10 minutes, putting in a 110°C oven for 10 minutes, or running a sterilise cycle in your dishwasher. Chop vegetable scraps into small pieces. Cut tougher scraps (e.g. garlic skins or the green part of leeks) into smaller pieces than softer veggies to help them cook faster. Heat a wide saucepan to…

Simple fabric recycling The fashion industry, and more broadly the fabric industry, produces vast quantities of waste, very little of which is recycled. One of the primary roadblocks to this is that many fabrics are blends, including two or more different fibre types, making them extremely difficult to process economically, if at all. The most common blend is polyester/cotton, which has proved impossible to separate mechanically and difficult to separate chemically, however a new solvent made from two low-cost, common chemicals has proven to be a simple and effective method to separate polyester and cotton fibres with almost 100% recovery rates. The solvent was developed by PhD student Nika Depope, Dr. Andreas Bartl and colleagues at the Vienna University of Technology. They mixed menthol and benzoic acid in a 3:1…

We have looked at wind-assisted commercial shipping a few times over the years, and one proponent that has been progressive in this area, European company Neoline, has now launched the largest wind-assisted cargo ship on the planet. The Neoliner Origin is a 136 metre, 6000 tonne, 5300 tonne cargo capacity hybrid wind assisted roll-on-roll-off cargo ship that uses the wind as its primary propulsion source. While the Origin has a 4MW diesel-electric backup drive system, the company hopes that 80% of the propulsion will be done by the two massive fibreglass and carbon fibre sails, which measure around 1500m2 each. The sails consist of multiple panels that open and close like an accordion, moving up and down carbon fibre masts, allowing them to be fully retracted when needed, and easily…

“The Community Renewables Program is a multi-award winning initiative. For the 1135 households connected, there has been a yearly reduction in CO2 emissions of approximately 2700 tonnes.” Driven by a desire to be close to the sea, Chris Downing and his family moved to Panorama, an inner southern suburb of Adelaide, 19 years ago. Like much of Adelaide, Panorama basks in long stretches of summer sun. Chris had been aware of the potential energy he could capture, but felt unsure how to take advantage of it. “I'd been meaning to do something about solar and batteries for ages, but I never felt like I knew enough to make an informed decision about which panels, inverters and batteries were best,” he says. That uncertainty lifted in 2022 when he and his…

Most schools stand to benefit significantly from rooftop solar, reducing electricity costs and freeing up funds for educational purposes. However, school leadership often lacks the time, resources and specialist expertise required to oversee solar projects—particularly in state schools, where attention is rightly focused on core teaching and learning priorities. This article outlines practical steps for school councils seeking to install solar, including navigating education department support, governance requirements, tendering processes, fundraising and system implementation. Drawing on our experience installing rooftop solar at Mount Alexander Secondary College (MAC) in Victoria, the lessons we share should be relevant to most schools nationwide, as well as to other community-led organisations such as not-for-profits, churches and sporting groups. Why solar works well in schools Schools are particularly well positioned to benefit from solar, as…

There is no doubt that ‘electrify everything’ makes a lot of sense in the long run environmentally and financially. But there are a lot of interacting complexities between solar PV, electric vehicles and associated charging, changing from gas to electric cooking, options for electric water heating, and possibly a home battery. All of these have options and implications for your house wiring and switchboard. Not to mention the capital cost. Because of these interactions, it is best to have a long-term plan that considers all these possible future developments. I got a bit carried away with looking at the simplest, cheapest solution. If you have a working electric storage hot water system, the cheapest way to save money is to put this on a timer. This applies whether you have…

When I'm teaching classes or writing about low-waste cooking, the question of how to make fresh produce last longer always comes up. Low-waste recipes are great, but if there are many days between when you buy fresh produce and when you have time to cook it, then it can start to feel like a race against time. Whether it's the zeitgeist or the algorithm, many of us in the Renew team are getting ads for various products that promise to extend the life of fresh produce in your fridge. There are some bold claims out there, so I wanted to put them to the test and explore the science behind how the different products work, as well as share some tips for getting the most out of them. Produce life-extender…

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) looks closer to becoming a reality. V2G technology allows electric vehicles (EVs) to supply stored energy back to the grid during high demand, or power the home (V2H). AGL's recent V2G trial exemplifies how EVs can shift from being modes of transport to “mobile energy assets”. “To unlock the full potential of their electric vehicles, owners need to think about them as more than cars, but rather as home batteries on wheels,” said Renae Gasmier, AGL Head of Innovation and Strategy. One of the key promises of V2G is its potential to stabilise the electricity grid during periods of peak demand. However, recent findings from our Monash University survey of more than 5000 Australian households reveal a tension between households’ appetite for future smart-appliance automation and their willingness…

We are seeing the whole world electrifying, but one of the arguments against electrification is that you can't do heavy equipment. Aside from being patently false (you can't beat the torque of an electric motor for doing the heavy work), all that's been lacking is for the equipment manufacturers to come on board the electrification train. That's certainly been happening in the last couple of years, with mining trucks, heavy trucks, earthmoving machines and all manner of heavy machinery ditching diesel. Another area that is starting the shift to electric is heavy mobile crane, and the two machines featured here show that anything can be made electric if desired. The first-ever Liebherr MK120-5.1E electric mobile crane uses a 98kWh battery and all-electric motor-driven winches (so no hydraulics) to provide up…

Think of the word ‘microplastics’ and the first image that comes to mind might be one of the ocean: marine creatures ingesting tiny pieces of plastic (which are then ingested by us), or plastic containers disintegrating after extended periods spent floating around in the sun and saltwater. The microplastics problem, however, extends far beyond the sea. “Because the ocean issue was probably observed first, because of the large floating garbage patches, people studied that first,” says Dr Scott Wilson, an environmental scientist, ecotoxicologist and research director at citizen science project AUSMAP. “Then scientists started thinking, ‘Where is all of this coming from?’” Of course, it's coming from us: our sinks, washing machines and stormwater drains wash out into our waterways, ushering pieces of plastic big and small into the ocean.…

Heard the saying that indoor pollution is worse than outdoor pollution? Well, it's true. Outdoor pollution tends to concentrate indoors. Add to that the artificially fragranced candles, fresheners, deodorant sprays, fabric softeners and more found in many homes, which for the great majority contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, plus things like bug spray, gas cooking and heating, cooking fumes and dust mites: most modern homes’ indoor air is burdening us with a load of pollutants our bodies are ill-equipped to cope with. Then we have mould. Most of us know mould as that annoying, ugly, musty-smelling stuff that shows up and is annoying to clean. That was me until one year, I became so sick with mould poisoning that I could barely walk, think or sleep and thought I might soon die.…

A while back I installed a 1.5 x 3 metre garden shed, on a spare concrete slab, to house all the garden tools and other stuff that needed to be kept out of the rain (but I didn't want it clogging up the garage). Sometimes, we need to access the shed at night, and that was always a case of grabbing a lantern or resorting to my keyring torch, so a light was needed in the shed. As there was no power there, it had to be a solar unit. I would normally put together a small solar system from various components, but also being time poor, I thought I would see what was available off the shelf. Looking around, there wasn't much available in Australia that was worth buying,…

With the end of support for most Windows 10 users in October 2025, hundreds of millions of Windows 10 PC users are left with one of three options: Keep using it unsecured (there is a way to get security updates extended for another year, which only delays the inevitable) Upgrade to Windows 11, if your PC supports it—many older machines don't, and while there are workarounds, Microsoft has been slowly closing those loopholes. It isn't worth the hassle, especially as Windows 11 is basically one giant chunk of data-harvesting AI spyware that literally records everything you do on your PC, including everything you copy to the clipboard! Ditch Windows for a free, safer operating system that doesn't watch everything you do—i.e. Linux, which is a free, open-source operating system available…

Have you ever asked yourself any of the following questions? “Despite the fact that the majority of Australians support stronger climate action, why do all Australian governments, past and present, support Australia being one of the world's biggest exporters of coal and fossil gas?” “Why are so many homes uninsulated?” “Why is there a huge shortage of affordable housing?” “Why have several states passed laws to punish nonviolent demonstrations with huge fines and even prison?” “Why are gambling advertisements permitted on television?” “Why have there been so many wars around the globe since the end of World War II and why has Australia been involved in several of them in distant locations where there was no threat to us?” State capture Deep down we know that underlying the major threats…