Capital
|
Commercial solar must now justify itself through contribution to the system during winter, with curtailment during summer largely irrelevant to the overall revenue of a site, according to new analysis from Endgame Analytics. It said curtailment during summer may be largely irrelevant to the overall revenue of a site, with the highly seasonal nature of solar revenue making technologies that can move megawatt-hours between seasons extremely valuable.
Spending by the six US data-centre hyperscalers approached US$400 billion in 2025 and is on track to reach $500 billion in 2026 and $600 billion in 2027, Moody’s analysts said. Regulatory risk and power limitations continue to constrain development, but some tenants were willing to share risks not taken on historically, like exempting power and essential utilities availability from completion requirements. For smaller power markets, like Malaysia and Australia, the analysts said data-centre related power demand may require a sharp increase in investment.
Meanwhile, analysis of public data from Heatmap Pro found at least 25 US data-centre projects were cancelled last year following local opposition, accounting for at least 4.7GW of electricity demand.
The UK government has announced the results of its biggest-ever auction for new offshore wind projects. By doubling the budget at the eleventh hour, it managed to award contracts for a massive 8.4GW of new capacity. Energy secretary Ed Miliband described it as “a monumental step towards clean power by 2030”. But in the short-term, there are still serious bottlenecks, writes Thomas York in The Conversation.
 Projects
|
The Queensland government called for feedback on Potentia Energy’s 300MW/1200MWh Capricorn battery and Trina Solar’s 200MW/800MWh Pleystowe battery project as Queensland Planning Minister Jarrod Bleijie considers whether to call them in due to a lack of adequate community consultation. Submissions close February 5. (Renew Economy)
Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) said it was still on track for the first LNG cargo from its Scarborough gas project in the second half of this year after the floating production unit successfully made its way from China to its new home 375km off the coast of Karratha. Woodside said the 70,000-tonne unit is one of the largest semi-submersible facilities ever constructed — from keel to top it is taller than a 50-storey building.
Danish offshore wind developer Orsted was given the green light to continue work on its almost completed US$5 billion Revolution Wind project near Rhode Island after a US court blocked a government stop-work order. The project was one of five halted by the US government after the US Department of Interior said the turbines might disrupt military radar. (Reuters) (Bloomberg)
Regulation
|
The structural challenge facing networks as rooftop solar and batteries boom is writ large in regulatory information notice (RIN) statements, analyst David Leitch said, using the data to show transmission-supplied volumes to distribution networks have fallen 10% since FY19. Leitch says the current push for higher fixed charges is one response, but it doesn’t address the underlying policy requirement to incentivise electrification — for that he suggests capitalising network costs into house prices.
Technology
|
A cyber attack on Poland’s power system in the final week of 2025 aimed to disrupt the communication between renewable installations and the power distribution operators, energy minister Milosz Motyka told reporters. He said it was the strongest attack on energy infrastructure in years. (Reuters)
Battery and solar panel recycler Livium (ASX: LIT), which uses microwave technology to extract rare earths from end-of-life batteries, said it had delivered leach efficiencies of more than 90% for Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr) in Stage 1 trials. The company has been undertaking the trials with a research team at the University of Melbourne’s School of Chemistry.
Climate
|
2025 was officially the third-hottest year on record, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reported. With record-breaking years also in 2023 and 2024, the average temperature has been more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for three years in a row. Climate Councillor and scientist Professor Lesley Hughes said the data revealed what Australians are already experiencing. “Pollution from coal, oil and gas is heating our atmosphere and oceans, driving worsening extreme weather and battering Australian communities and ecosystems.”
Both China and India saw coal power fall in 2025, the first time in more than 50 years, CarbonBrief reported. While both countries have continued to add coal capacity, China’s record renewable energy capacity additions drove the decline, while in India a mild summer saw a slowdown in demand. Power generation in these two countries drove more than 90% of the increase in global carbon dioxide emissions from all sources between 2015-2024.
Research
|
Bioregions in central parts of the Northern Territory need urgent conservation planning to avoid cumulative impacts from the development of solar, wind and onshore gas, according to research from Charles Darwin University. The researchers cited the Renewable Energy Zones approach used in parts of New South Wales and Victoria as an example of successful conservation planning.
Rooftop solar could meet 40% of Europe’s power needs under a fully renewable energy system scenario by 2050, researchers from the European Commission projected. Their study in Nature Energy used an open-access building-level database to show that potential capacity could reach 2.3TWp, with an annual output of 2,750TWh based on current PV technology.
People
|
Consumer advocate Craig Memery and lawyer Christine Williams were appointed to the board of ASL as non-executive directors.
Former Clean Energy Council distributed energy expert Maxime di Petta joined the Australian Energy Market Operator as Advisor - Change & Engagement.