Results season continued this week and the research sector sounded the alarm on declining investment in R&D.

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EnergyAustralia, the country’s third-largest electricity and gas supplier, has embarked on a major initiative to lift the performance of its retail arm after suffering a near 86% plunge in full-year operating earnings. The business, owned by Hong Kong-listed CLP Group, lost 83,000 customers and has begun an initiative to modernise its back-end systems to improve retail efficiency and customer experience. (AFR)

Fortescue (ASX: FMG) reported a 23% surge in EBITDA to $6.3 billion (US$4.5 billion) for the first half of FY2025-26 on the back of record shipments of iron ore, with net profit after tax up to $2.67 billion (US$1.9 billion). CEO Dino Otranto lauded the company’s progress towards decarbonisation, including delivery of its first BESS, deployment of electric mobile equipment and the ongoing “decarbonisation at scale” including the installation of 3,600 solar panels per day at the company’s Cloudbreak mine and another 1GW of solar PV in the pipeline.

Global resources investor Tribeca told investors that Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) shares are “deeply discounted” after the energy giant turned in annual results showing net profit after tax was down 24% from 2024 despite record production of 198.8 million barrels of oil equivalent during the past year. Woodside sang the praises of its “cash-generative” Scarborough gas and Louisiana LNG and Trion projects, which it said are building up a strong pipeline for future results. Market Forces head of Australian campaigns Brett Morgan was less bullish, warning that Woodside could be cashflow negative by 2031 and arguing that “Woodside’s latest disclosures show its business plans are still completely at odds with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.” (AFR)

MGA Thermal has received $3.25 million in ARENA funding to accelerate the commercialisation of its thermal energy storage (TES) technology, which uses patented MGA Block technology to store energy as latent heat. That means renewable energy can replace industrial gas by being stored within the MGA Blocks and moved where needed to deliver “high-grade process heat suitable for industrial applications” with zero emissions. The funding will help MGA Thermal develop five real-world projects with “strategic customers”.

Australia’s energy transition proved irresistible for global investors last year, with the energy, utilities and resources sector jumping from 25% of total mergers and acquisitions activity in 2024 to 46% in 2025, according to PwC Australia’s newly released M&A Outlook 2026. Buyers are paying premiums for “predictable revenue streams and energy transition exposure,” the report found

Queensland Investment Corporation’s Bluecurrent business has secured the support of investment banks Barrenjoey and Citi as it joins the scrum of contenders vying to purchase the Plus Es smart meter business of NSW electricity distributor Ausgrid, according to reports that value the meter company at around $2.5 billion. Bluecurrent, which QIC created after buying Vector’s ANZ business in 2023, would probably attract ACCC scrutiny for the deal – which it is said to be pursuing to increase its economies of scale. (The Australian)

Aula Energy has acquired 1GW of solar assets from Lightsource bp, delivering the company five operating solar farms in West Wyalong, Wunghnu, Woolooga, Wellington and Wellington North. The acquisition is the company’s “first operating fleet” across the NEM, the company said, with SA’s 256MW Carmody’s Hill Wind Farm reaching financial close in December and Queensland’s 228MW Boulder Creek Wind Farm still under construction.

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Tasmanian Treasury officials said they were working with TasNetworks to deliver on a policy commitment made by the government to shield major industrial customers from the forecast $20 million increase in bills stemming from the Marinus Link project. The costs to cover it are expected to appear in the state’s next budget.

The end of the federal government’s energy price support subsidies has been a major contributor to higher than expected inflation figures, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has said as a 3.8% headline inflation figure quashed hopes of a reprieve after the Reserve Bank’s recent rate rise. A 32.2% increase in electricity prices over the past 12 months was up from 21.5% in the 12 months to December. (AFR)

Emails released under freedom-of-information laws show that conditions attached to Environment Minister Murray Watt’s approval of Woodside extending the North West Shelf project operation to 2070 were changed several times after the gas giant’s lobbying. The released emails show Woodside was particularly opposed to two conditions: that it monitor levels of various emissions in real time, and that it reduce emissions on five-yearly intervals. (The Age)

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Akaysha Energy expects to have a replacement for its failed HVT3 transformer live at the Waratah Super Battery by the third quarter of this year, the company announced as the battery continues to operate with just one of its three transformers live. The original HVT3 transformer “experienced a significant internal fault”, the company reported in an update, saying the fault caused a tank wall to rupture and drain the transformer’s contents into the surrounding area.

TasNetworks chief executive Sean McGoldrick has provided an update on the state-owned company’s progress at “moving heaven and earth” to get landowners across the line on the North West Transmission Developments, telling a Tasmanian parliamentary hearing just 10 of the 261 affected landowners were proving “more difficult”.

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The AEMC released a pair of draft rules designed to head off predicted shortfalls of gas by improving the management in the east coast energy system with a package of “targeted, practical reforms designed to give the market and AEMO better visibility and tools to anticipate and manage any supply risks.” The draft rules on enhancing reliability and supply adequacy advise clearer warning signals and better forecasting, while a proposed Supplier of Last Resort (SoLR) mechanism would protect consumers by imposing price limits on contracted SoLR services, and increase transparency by publishing notices when SoLR contracts are activated. Submissions close on April 9 and April 23, respectively, with an information session to be held on 13 March.

Earlier in the week the rule maker said it would publish the customer impact analysis that forms part of its pricing review in April, as analysts continued to warn of the impact higher fixed charges could have on rooftop solar and home batteries and people who ration their energy use. Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) electricity analyst Jay Gordon said a household that installed a 10kWh battery in 2025 could pay an additional $5,800–$11,500 in electricity costs over the battery’s lifetime under predominantly fixed network tariffs.

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is seeking comment on its newly published draft non-disclosure guideline, which is designed to provide greater transparency around non-disclosure claims, minimise the risk of inadvertent disclosure, and incentivise network operators to make “well justified” claims. Submissions are open until March 20 and the AER is aiming to finalise amendments to the guidelines by May.

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Fiji and Tuvalu will host pre-COP meetings and a special leaders’ component, respectively, in advance of the UN’s COP31 meeting in Antalya, Türkiye in November. The special sessions, which were announced at the Pacific Islands Forum, will be held in October and will provide “an unprecedented opportunity for the world to listen to the Pacific and understand the existential threat climate change poses for the region,” minister for Pacific Island affairs Pat Conroy said. Australia holds the negotiations presidency for COP31.

Australia’s annual carbon emissions dropped by 1.9% last year, led by the surge in renewables, lower gas use and an increase in adoption of EVs that now account for 13.1% of all cars sold, according to the latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Quarterly Update. A 4.3% drop in NEM emissions and a 27.6% reduction in Australia’s overall emissions compared with 2005 levels means “We are on track to meet our climate targets if we stay the course and continue to lift our efforts,” Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said.

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R&D investments at Australian universities have fallen to a 20 year low, a new report by Universities Australia. It comes after data from the International Energy Agency showed public investment in energy R&D also plummeted to a new low in Australia in 2025, amid a global slowdown of around 2%.

Gas supplies just 5% of Australia’s power but plays “an outsized role" in setting the price of power because prices for gas-fired peak energy are set during the times of highest demand, the Climate Council has warned in a new white paper, entitled Power Games: Who’s Driving High Power Bills? that breaks down the structure of wholesale energy costs. Prices have risen steadily since Australia began shipping east-coast gas offshore, the report found, diminishing available supply and exposing the NEM to the vagaries of international energy markets.

CSIRO officially launched a $3 million upgrade of its Newcastle-based Renewable Energy Integration Facility (REIF), a test-bed whose extensive body of equipment allows the simulation of microgrids and grid faults, testing of inverter performance under real-world conditions, and running “large-scale experiments” combining solar, battery, and EVs – including demonstrations of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology whose viability the CSIRO is currently evaluating as a complement to the NEM.

Australia’s electricity grid is “a nest of externalities” in which energy storage remains a bottleneck, a Monash Energy Institute study into the impact of BESS on the NEM has found, warning that successfully operating storage is difficult because trading is dynamic and must be performed in an environment in which arbitrage is tricky and potential collusion by competing storage operators risks creating competition issues that must be monitored. To ensure reliability, the researchers write, the market operator "needs to induce storage to purchase more than what it finds privately optimal.”

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A data centre developer backed by a former top Australian grid boss has partnered with a New York-based startup looking to slash the energy needs of artificial intelligence. Celero Infrastructure, whose team includes former Australian Energy Market Operator chief operations manager Damien Sanford and veterans of transmission and renewable energy development, wants to develop energy and data centre hubs that reinforce rather than undermine the grid.

New AI data centres are being built at such a breakneck pace that hyperscalers are, among many other adaptations, exploring the use of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) as an alternative to copper wiring. While copper’s intrinsic electrical resistance requires thicker cables to carry high loads, HTS materials take up less space to move large amounts of power and could enable data centre architects to improve designs by reducing transmission losses and – if applied elsewhere along the energy supply chain – increase the resiliency of electrical grids. (IEEE)

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The Australian Energy Market Operator has appointed two industry veterans to its board which is composed of both government and industry representatives. Energy Efficiency Council CEO Luke Menzel leads the peak energy efficiency body’s efforts at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Josef Tadich is Regional Director of Tesla Energy APAC.

Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes will step down from the group in May to take on a new regional role as Chief Executive of the Renewable Energy Council Asia Pacific (RECAP). Grimes has led the peak body for almost 18 years and in his new role will continue to represent SEC members internationally.

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Looking ahead to next week, Parliament returns and the Clean Energy Investor Group and Energy Consumers Australia will both hold their annual conferences.