Industry: Energy

Highlights from the Australian market

• Labor’s flagship renewables policy has hit a major setback, with 27 of 109 Capacity Investment Scheme projects pulling out as rising costs, grid connection delays and difficulty securing PPAs take their toll. The withdrawals take 9.5GW out of the scheme’s 40GW total and cast doubt over whether enough new generation will be built before Eraring and Yallourn close.
• The WA Government’s Plan for Affordable Energy targets 75% renewables on the main grid by 2030-31 and offers manufacturers low-interest loans of up to $15 million. The government warns business energy prices could rise 89% by 2032 without the build-out.
• Experts warn the federal government’s gas reservation scheme, which would make east coast exporters set aside up to 20% of production for the domestic market, has loopholes that could let Santos meet its obligations with “paper” supplies. Gas producers argue the scheme goes too far and could raise prices.
• Amid growing community backlash in inner Sydney and Melbourne, the Albanese government will ban AI data centres from being built near homes and recreational facilities. Draft laws due for consultation before the end of the year will also force new data centres to transition to renewables or risk having their power cut off.
• The market operator is warning of “catastrophic” blackout risks as its engineers and analysts take industrial action over pay, including bans on approving planned outages.
• Octopus has agreed terms to buy TagEnergy’s 577MW Golden Plains Wind Farm 2 near Geelong in a deal worth more than $2 billion. Meanwhile, CECEP Wind Power and Goldwind have put the 435MW White Rock Wind Farm near Glen Innes up for sale, expected to fetch more than $450 million, amid a wider exit of Chinese capital frustrated by FIRB.
• WA will be the first state to lift its ban on plug-in “balcony” solar, opening solar to renters and apartment dwellers, with estimated savings of $240 a year, or up to $500 with a battery. The government has launched consultation on a safety standard before it finalises the rules.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: Tokyo Gas has dropped plans for a 30MW floating offshore wind project off Fukushima because construction costs keep rising. The project sat outside the government’s offshore wind auctions, and Tokyo Gas will stay in bottom-fixed projects such as the 450MW Round 3 project off Yamagata it is developing with Marubeni and Kansai EPCO.
• Paywalled: Inzai City in Chiba Prefecture, home to about 30 data centres, is moving forward w/ new regulations to ban the development of new data centres around its three main train stations..

Podcast of the week

Zugzwang: Episode 6 – Anatomy of a Trading Department

The latest episode of Zugzwang: The market modelling podcast is now available!

Jack Simpson, Oliver Nunn and Endgame Director David Scott go inside a trading team to see how the physical, contract and risk desks work. They explain why a price spike looks very different to each desk, from the contracts locked in years out to the dispatch decisions made on the day.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0346ILtbXgKJJIlOy64p1i
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zugzwang/id6801348317
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ3gvq2Ccils

Highlights from the Australian market

• Snowy 2.0’s price tag has blown out to up to $25 billion, another increase from the original $2 billion when it was announced in 2017. With tunnelling only 65% complete, the 2,200 MW pumped hydro project isn’t expected to deliver first power until early 2029.
• Alinta Energy has abandoned its $1.8 billion, 900 MW Oven Mountain pumped hydro scheme in northern NSW, citing economic and timing challenges including a critical transmission line. It’s the second largest NSW project scrapped this month, after Origin’s Skye Ridge Wind Farm, as falling battery costs undercut pumped hydro.
• WEM news: AEMO has set the 2028-29 Reserve Capacity Prices at $459,192/MW/year for Peak capacity and $244,250/MW/year for Flexible capacity, alongside the assignment of capacity credits for the 2026 Reserve Capacity Cycle.
• NextDC expects its future earnings to fall by about a third after West Footscray residents stalled Jemena’s rollout of 15-metre, 66 kV power poles to its Melbourne M3 data centre by parking their cars in the street to block the work trucks. Morningstar expects community pushback like this to drive new data centres further from built-up areas.
• A new alliance of Queensland community groups, backed by Nationals leader David Littleproud, is calling for tougher rules on wind and solar developments, including minimum 3 km setbacks from homes and up-front decommissioning bonds. It follows growing frustration among neighbours of projects, such as Stanwell’s Wambo Wind Farm, and adds to planning risk for the Queensland renewables pipeline.
• NSW spot prices hit $23,107/MWh on 12 October when a spring heatwave coincided with coal outages. Amber Electric’s roughly 30,000 customers earned about $2 million in two hours by exporting from home batteries during the spike, which raises questions about AEMO’s lack of visibility over behind-the-meter storage.
• Paywalled: LNG importers across Asia are pushing back on the federal government’s plan to make exporters reserve gas for the domestic market, putting Australia at odds with the region’s major energy buyers. The outcome will shape east coast gas supply and prices for gas-fired generation.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: METI is considering raising the fee for grid connection applications, which hasn’t changed since 2012 (¥220,000, about AUD 2,000), to stop BESS developers from holding grid capacity without firm plans. Applications have jumped from 1,599 in FY2023 to nearly 25,000 in FY2025, and earlier measures like a higher deposit and caps on applications per developer haven’t slowed them.

Podcast of the week

BloombergNEF’s Switched On looks at why gas turbine makers are cashing in on the global power rush. With orders surging, delivery slots scarce and data centres driving demand, they ask how long the boom can last and whether manufacturers can expand without repeating past overcapacity.

Highlights from the Australian market

• NSW is letting gas into its renewables scheme, with ASL consulting on a firming LTESA tender designed specifically to support gas-fired plants, a sharp contrast to the federal Capacity Investment Scheme, which excludes gas.
• ASL’s 2026 Firming IIO Report sets a 1,500 MW pathway for new NSW firming capacity by May 2033 to cover the retirement of Bayswater and Vales Point, with projects needing to deliver for at least eight hours and a first tender due in 2027.
• Victoria has given final state approval to WestWind Energy’s 1.5 GW Warracknabeal Energy Park, a 219-turbine wind farm with two 300 MW batteries that would be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, though critics warn it depends on transmission lines like VNI West and the Western Renewable Link that are far from built.
• The Climate Council warns coal and gas miners are using a Safeguard Mechanism loophole, classing projects as expansions rather than new facilities to avoid stricter best-practice limits, which it estimates will add 4.5 Mt of CO2 a year by 2035.
• A new ACCR report argues WA doesn’t need Woodside’s Browse project to avoid a domestic gas shortfall from 2030, since exporters could supply more from existing projects, a claim rejected by Woodside, industry veterans and the Cook Government.
• SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis has hinted for the first time that SA may miss its 100% net renewables target for 2027, possibly slipping into 2028, after delays to the SA–NSW interconnector stalled new wind investment, though the state’s pipeline is now rebounding to nearly $32.5 billion of projects under construction or approved.
• Buru Energy has referred its Rafael conventional gas project in the Kimberley to the WA EPA, claiming it could meet all of the region’s gas demand with first gas by early 2029, though environmentalists warn it could be a “Trojan horse for fracking”.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: With METI requiring new grid-connected BESS to hold JC-STAR cybersecurity certification from April 2027 and no Chinese manufacturers yet approved, Korean and Taiwanese makers such as Samsung SDI, Recharge Power and Cold Electric are moving to fill the gap in Japan’s battery market.

New whitepaper

Endgame Analytics’ latest whitepaper puts Byron Bay under the microscope. Using connected vehicle data from Compass IoT, we modelled what an extra 6,000 visiting EVs would mean for peak demand on the local substation.

The case study looks at a peak visitor day, when around 40,000 visitors join the town’s 11,500 residents, and assumes half of all visiting vehicles are electric.

Download the whitepaper: Electrifying the Light Vehicle Fleet – Endgame Analytics

Podcast of the week

Zugzwang: Episode 5 – Networks, power poles and the EV charging gap

The latest episode of Zugzwang: The market modelling podcast is now available!

Jack Simpson and Oliver Nunn are joined by Endgame Director Martin Chow and Russell Pendlebury, General Manager of Regulation and Policy at Energy Networks Australia, to dig into proposed rule changes that would let networks install curbside EV chargers on ordinary suburban power poles, and what it means for equity, network costs and bills.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0346ILtbXgKJJIlOy64p1i
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zugzwang/id6801348317
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ3gvq2Ccils

Highlights from the Australian market

• Locals near Dalby are pushing back on a proposed $32 billion hyperscale data centre in the Western Downs, with a petition against the project drawing more than 21,000 signatures as residents fear the state could fast-track approvals over their heads.
• The High Court has dismissed MACH Energy’s appeal, keeping its Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion on hold after ruling the NSW planning commission should have considered the emissions from burning the mine’s exported coal overseas.
• Singapore’s energy regulator says Sun Cable’s $35 billion plan to export NT solar power to Singapore faces major cost, distance and approval hurdles, with cheaper short-haul imports from Malaysia and Indonesia competing for the same market.
• Wagga Wagga residents have launched a petition against CDC’s proposed $15 billion, 1.4 GW data centre, which is expected to use as much electricity each year as 1 to 1.5 million NSW homes.
• Australia’s public charging network is falling well behind surging EV sales, with the ratio worsening to one charger for every 52.7 EVs and operators warning of long queues on busy summer road-trip days like Boxing Day.
• Tesla and major energy retailers are fighting a proposed “EV charger tax” that would let grid operators install EV chargers on their power poles and recover the cost from all electricity customers, including people who don’t drive EVs.
• Nvidia-backed AI data centre builder Firmus has pulled its $44 billion ASX float, which would have been the biggest since Telstra, after investors balked at its valuation and debt levels.
• The ACCC reports that large east coast gas buyers have contracted more gas under long-term agreements than at this point in any of the previous four years, with prices for 2027 and 2028 supply holding steady at around $12–13/GJ despite elevated international prices.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: METI is considering a new framework within the Capacity Market to pay ageing thermal plants slated for decommissioning to stay online for at least another one to three years ahead of expected tight supply conditions.
• Paywalled: Kansai EPCO and Tohoku EPCO will join TEPCO and Japan Atomic Power at the interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Mutsu City, Aomori, adding 600 tons to fill the facility’s 5,000-ton capacity and maximise the city’s tax revenue from the site.

Podcast of the week

To tax or not to tax EVs (ABC Business Daily): Carrington Clarke and the e61 Institute’s Amy Tramontozzi explain what surging EV uptake and falling fuel excise revenue mean for the budget and how vehicles on our roads should be taxed.

Highlights from the Australian market

• EV sales in Australia have more than doubled in a year to one in four new cars sold, with EVs outselling petrol and diesel vehicles for the first time last month.
• The government’s Australian Energy Update 2026 shows Australia’s total energy use fell 5% as electric vehicles, rooftop solar and growing renewable generation replace fossil fuels.
• Goodman Group has withdrawn its controversial $1.2 billion “Project Mars” data centre in Lane Cove, citing community opposition and a changing regulatory environment as resistance to AI infrastructure grows across the country.
• Sydney solar retailer Macarthur Energy has collapsed owing $3.4 million to creditors, leaving customers out of pocket by up to $17,600 for batteries never installed and raising questions about consumer protections under the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program.
• The federal and Tasmanian governments have announced a $200 million lifeline for Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay Aluminium smelter, backing a five-year power deal with Hydro Tasmania that secures 550 direct jobs.
• Marinus Link has begun its next construction phase with a sod-turning ceremony for the undersea interconnector between North West Tasmania and Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, with the related transmission works due in service by 2030.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: Kyushu Electric’s incoming president, Norihiro Nakamura, says the utility is considering building new nuclear capacity, as demand in the region grows from AI data centres and semiconductor hubs such as TSMC’s.
• Paywalled: TEPCO is tightening its grid connection rules to stop data centre developers holding queue spots without firm plans; from October 2026, it will cancel requests if the initial construction deposit (10% of estimated costs) isn’t paid within three months, or if development plans change during the application stage.

Podcast of the week

Zugzwang: Episode 4 – Benchmarking battery optimisers

The latest episode of Zugzwang: The market modelling podcast is now available!

Jack Simpson and Oliver Nunn are joined by Rakhesh Martyn, founder and CEO of Hachiko, to unpack how battery optimisers actually capture value. 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0346ILtbXgKJJIlOy64p1i
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zugzwang/id6801348317
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ3gvq2Ccils

Highlights from the Australian market

• The Coalition has pledged to repeal a swathe of climate policies within 30 days of taking office – scrapping the net zero target, safeguard mechanism, vehicle emissions standards, nuclear prohibitions and four offshore wind zones – with Angus Taylor saying “Australia has done its bit” to drive down emissions.
• Victoria will ban datacentres from residential zones and within 150 m of homes, schools and childcare centres, and require them to supply their own renewable energy and storage; critics point out that the rules aren’t retrospective, exempting all approved projects and the eight applications already before the planning minister.
• With AEMO forecasting that datacentre electricity use could triple by 2030, the AEMC has opened consultation on two rule changes from Minister Bowen that would make datacentres and other large loads pay their share of the network upgrades they trigger, and stop the cost of stranded assets being passed to other consumers if projects fall through. Submissions close 5 November.
• Treasury’s Intergenerational Report 2026 names the energy transition as one of five forces reshaping the economy over the next 40 years, projecting that household energy costs will fall around 40% between 2030 and 2050 as homes electrify, and that data centres will make up almost 10% of NEM demand by 2050.
• Woodside and Burrup Peninsula Traditional Owners are locked in a $300 million compensation dispute over the 1998 land access agreement for the North West Shelf’s Karratha Gas Plant – the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation is seeking $390 million over 12 years against Woodside’s offer of $87 million.
• Chris Bowen is travelling to India and Saudi Arabia to bolster fuel security, with plans to visit the world’s largest refinery at Jamnagar and meet Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman about the closure of the East-West pipeline, ahead of COP31.
• Sunshine and wind met a record 80.4% of demand on the NEM on Saturday 19^th September, with rooftop solar alone supplying more than half the grid’s power for 30 minutes around lunchtime.

News from Japan

• Paywalled: JERA will invest around ¥310 billion (~A$2.8 billion) to build Hawaii’s first LNG-fired power plant, along with an import terminal and gas pipelines on Oahu. The project would open up new LNG demand in a state that still relies on oil for around 70% of its power generation.

Podcast of the week

Columbia Energy Exchange looks at the Iran war six months on. With crude near $107 a barrel, Hormuz tanker traffic reduced and Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline offline, they warn that the market buffers that cushioned the early shock are running out.

Highlights from the Australian market

• Anthropic has signed a lease for Australia’s largest data centre, the $32 billion Western Downs Digital Park near Dalby in Queensland, which will power Claude AI inference and, once built, draw electricity equivalent to 1.5 million households.
• Australia’s dependence on gas generation during the evening peak has fallen by almost 70% in the year to August 2026, with batteries now covering 49% of evening dispatchable power, up from just 0.4% in 2020.
• In the same vein, new ANU modelling finds Australia doesn’t need more gas-fired generation to meet future energy needs, showing pumped hydro and batteries can balance a fully renewable grid at a comparable cost.
• NSW’s renewable transmission delivery agency EnergyCo has underspent its budget by $939 million over the past two years, a symptom of approval delays that now leave the state roughly 7.9GW short of its 2030 renewable energy target.
• ARENA has committed $8.2 million to a home electrification trial that aims to make the transition from gas to electricity easier, letting up to 1,000 Canberra households bundle solar, batteries and EVs onto one digital platform.
• IEEFA and Green Energy Markets’ Australian Renewable Energy Scorecard finds Australia has enough wind and solar in the pipeline – 34GW of solar and 17GW of wind fully approved – to hit the 82% 2030 renewables target, but actual construction is falling far short.  

News from Japan

• Chubu Electric Power has withdrawn its restart applications for Hamaoka Units 3 and 4 after an independent committee found staff had for years manipulated seismic safety data submitted to Japan’s nuclear regulator, leaving it unclear if or when the reactors will ever restart.

Podcast of the week

Zugzwang: Episode 3 – What is transmission really worth?

The latest episode of Zugzwang: The market modelling podcast is now available!

Jack Simpson, Oliver Nunn and Jabez Wilson discuss modelling philosophy and put it to work on one of the NEM’s most contested assets: transmission. Listen now on your favourite platform.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0346ILtbXgKJJIlOy64p1i

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zugzwang/id6801348317

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ3gvq2Ccils