Queensland energy brain drain runs deep
​12 August 2025

The aggregate effect of several high-profile energy leaders' departure from key roles in Queensland had industry-watchers in August nervous for the Queensland Energy Roadmap, which was eventually released in November.

Departures included Paul Simshauser, Emma Roberts, Alana Barlow, Tara Gardiner, Kieran Cusack, Paul Martyn and David Shankey. The worries were that the exodus from the state had left the government ill-equipped to devise an energy policy that would address the once-in-a-hundred years upheaval in the sector as thermal generation is replaced by wind, solar and storage.

A related concern was that more than a billion dollars could be spent attempting to extend the life of the state’s coal power stations — a fear given weight by the eventual roadmap.

Perth upstart PolarBlue aims to upend energy
​9 December 2025

In December PolarBlue took The Energy journalist Ben Potter on a tour of its facilities to put its bold claims on display. The startup says it has cracked the code for producing cheap, low-carbon replacements for fossil fuels — hydrogen, methanol, diesel, ammonia and aviation fuel — through advanced materials science, light, novel floating wind turbines and a simplified production system that carves out costs and time at every step.

You also loved another PolarBlue story from May on how it had partnered with Australia’s largest transformer manufacturer Wilson Transformer Company for connectivity.

NEM review hits turbulence over contract design
​30 September 2025

Part of the NEM review is its quest to develop a suite of new energy contracts to support long-term investment in new generation. But a class of ASX contracts to support clean energy investment being eyed by the review panel was reinventing the wheel, according to innovators in the over-the-counter (OTC) contract market.

The OTC firms asked why the ASX should have an easy run at hosting the new, government-backed long term contracts when it had belatedly copied their innovations in short term energy derivatives and shown little or no capacity for its own innovation.

In the end, the NEM review panel heeded the feedback of the industry and

Getting messy in the sandbox for distributor-led energy storage
​26 September 2025

The first trial to be granted leave under a so-called "sandbox" provision from the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) set a very low bar for future proposals, critics warned in September. The sandbox was launched in February 2025 and allows the AEMC to temporarily change existing rules or introduce a new rule to allow an experimental new project to proceed.

Ausgrid, the largest distributor of electricity on the east coast, lodged an application in May 2025 for a sandbox waiver for a $190 million project called the Community Power Network (CPN), which would pool surplus solar from rooftops into Ausgrid-owned batteries to redistribute during the evening peak and to trade on the wholesale market to generate profit.

But critics raised a slew of concerns including fears of anti-competitive behaviour with AGL noting that the trial would allow Ausgrid "to own and operate assets that appears to compete directly with their customers".

Amber eyes NEM bidding amid CER turf war
​8 August 2025

The rapid growth of consumer energy resources (CER) — such as rooftop solar panels, home batteries and electric vehicle chargers — was rocking supply, demand and prices and making the NEM harder to manage, according to Dan Adams, co-founder and CEO of Amber Electric.

He said Amber expected its fleet of automated customer batteries to grow from about 70 megawatts in August to 500MW within two or three years, and that the Australian Energy Market Operator needed greater visibility of CER aggregators to accurately forecast demand and schedule generation to balance the market.

Greater visibility is likely in the wake of the NEM review, which recommended a mandatory framework requiring aggregators able to orchestrate more than 30MW of capacity be required to participate in dispatch mode (inactive).