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What's holding back floating solar

Published about 5 hours ago • 8 min read

Hey Reader, in today's edition:

  • Floating solar explained
  • Policy politicisation meets disinformation
  • Wholesale demand response mechanism to continue

Unlocking floating solar

Australia is behind the curve when it comes to deploying floating solar because of a lack of clear regulatory signals and uncertainty over water rights.

Floating photovoltaics (FPV) are installed on lakes, reservoirs and farm dams, and in some cases at sea. But despite projected 23% annual growth in the FPV industry through to 2030, and Australia being a world-leader in rooftop installations, Australia has only a handful of FPV trials.

The water-saving, food-production and energy-production potential are enormous, with FPV protecting water storage dams from evaporation and providing local power to irrigators. In a water-constrained country like Australia, FPV would seem like an obvious choice.

But Australia lacks coherent standards and permitting structures. Writing FPV explicitly into planning controls could be pivotal to unlocking investment confidence, derisking innovation, and accelerating Australia’s path toward scalable, drought-resilient, and bankable FPV.

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Social licence for more policy muscle

Major policy reform depends on trust, and trust requires listening and promise-keeping, a Policy Dialogue at the National Press Club heard this week.

A collaborative research project involving three levels of government, Strengthening Australia’s Policy Reform Muscle via Social Licence, looks at external and internal factors as well as common barriers to public acceptance of change, including politicisation and mis/disinformation.

“It will surprise no-one in this room to hear that policy politicisation reared its head through our research and all the case examples as the Gorgon that destroys public trust in government,” ANU Crawford School Professor Sara Bice said.

“It’s met by its newer friend but increasingly powerful friend, disinformation, which, alongside the less malignant misinformation, is triggering really mind-bending policy debates in unreality, and its destabilising democratic processes.”

Expert view

“We’ve gone from 1% to 76% renewables in 20 years. And we’ve done that through a combination of policy reform, political leadership, and community acceptance. And at each stage, through that, we have strengthened and reinforced that social acceptance — from solar panels on roofs to wind turbines to big factories to hydrogen plants. This is constant gardening. This is the kind of enduring work of public policy — to be constantly refining what we’re doing.

Whether it’s the continued net-zero transition, climate change mitigation and adaptation, absorbing AI into our economy and our society, we’re going to be continually asking our community to take some big steps. We really need to think about how all of the actors in the system work together.”

Brenton Caffin
Executive Director, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, South Australia

Expert view

“One of the real challenges around social licence and getting community buy-in to reform is that it’s often happening top-down. It’s not necessarily built from the ground up. And so local government has a really important role to play. Where we’ve seen reform work, there is good governance at the local level … building local government capacity, working with Commonwealth and state agencies is critical in issues of broader policy reform but also building social assets.

“We’ve seen current examples, like the transition, where we’re seeing fracturing of communities in regions, particularly where there’s not that joined up approach from government to actually work with community in a collaborative way – just not working at the local level … Councils can play a really important role in building community capacity around understanding the need for change.”

Kelly Grigsby
CEO, Municipal Association of Victoria

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Final report backs wholesale demand response mechanism

The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) recommended the wholesale demand response mechanism (WDRM), which pays consumers to switch off during periods of peak demand, should continue operating in the National Electricity Market (NEM), with a tweak.

It also recommended giving the green light to a pending rule change request from Enel X Australia, expanding eligibility under the WDRM, to assess whether sites with multiple connection points should be allowed to participate in the mechanism.

Between October 2021 and June 2025, the WDRM resulted in $5.32 million ($1.42 million per year) of dispatch efficiency benefits — greater than its operational costs of $350,000 - $500,000 per year — and contributed to downward pressure on wholesale prices, with average price savings of $27.83/MWh during WDR dispatch.

Expert view

“It is great that they’ve acknowledged the enduring role of demand response and its importance for the current and future energy system.

We’ve lost a lot of demand response opportunities that need to be made up for now, and the next step will be to get on with developing the new baselines and improving the process and ability for people to participate.

We’re still of the view that there’s a big missing piece for households because the IPRR (Integrating Price Responsive Resources rule change) won’t provide opportunities that really work for both industry and people in a way that maximises the potential utilisation of demand response. The test of that will be electrification, which is happening now.

It’s disappointing the Commission hasn't really considered the opportunity for extending WDRM to households and we maintain that that’s the next logical step.”

Craig Memery
Senior Adviser, Energy, Justice & Equity Centre

Catch Up

Capital

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BHP (ASX: BHP) CEO Mike Henry warned shareholders the pace of reform was moving faster in other countries. “Australia can’t afford to be flat-footed in the race for global investment,” he told the annual general meeting. “Energy policy needs to be a focus, with electricity costs in Australia two or more times higher than Canada, Indonesia and other countries and 50-100% higher than the US. A clear-eyed view … is the starting point for being in the contest at all.”

RedEarth launched the first Australian-made vehicle-to-grid bi-directional charger. “The V2G Charger will allow EV owners to use their vehicle’s mobile battery system to supplement their home energy storage system, providing access to additional energy reserves during grid outages,” CEO Marc Sheldon said. The local manufacturer also released the next generation of energy storage system Gecko and low-voltage battery Troppo, which is expected to be available in early 2026.

Woodside (ASX: WDS) announced a US$1.9 billion deal with US-based gas infrastructure giant Williams (NYSE: WMB) for a landmark US project. “With strong LNG contracting momentum from Louisiana LNG and our portfolio, our existing infrastructure partner New York-based Stonepeak, and our key contracting partners including Bechtel, Baker Hughes and Chart, we are on track to deliver first LNG in 2029,” Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill said.

Northern Minerals (ASX: NTU) launched a $60 million institutional placement in the wake of Australia’s mega-deal with the United States. (AFR)

Projects

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AEMO assigned Frontier Energy (ASX: FHE) 88.06MW of peak capacity credits to Stage One of Waroona in Western Australia. The project is being developed in stages, starting with a 120MW solar farm and a 80MW battery, and is due to come online as coal plants exit. “Importantly, this foundational revenue is in addition to revenue from energy sales and underpins the Waroona Project’s already robust economics. We are aiming to finalise the financing for development in the coming months,” the company said. (Ausbiz)

GE Vernova will supply QPM Energy with two LM6000 aeroderivative gas turbine packages for the new Isaac Power Station in Queensland, a project set to deliver up to 112MW by mid-2027. The turbines, suitable for peaking and baseload generation, will use QPM’s existing gas reserves or coal mine waste gas (with at least 50% methane) that it collects.

Policy

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Australia has been urged to move from decades of compliance-driven “engagement” with First Nations stakeholders to the approach built on co-ownership, shared risk and long-term collaboration in countries such as Canada, the United States and Chile. “The real opportunity over the next 20 or 30 years is where we see Indigenous Peoples very much move into the role of co-investors, where they can take on some of the risk with the developers of the assets and being part of capital raising and taking equity positions,” Darren Godwell, Chair of Indigenous Business Australia (IBA), told IMARC 2025.

Regulation

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AEMO, after publishing version 7.0 of the NEM Reform Implementation Roadmap earlier this week, announced a general briefing scheduled for Monday, November 24.

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) granted a ring-fencing waiver to CitiPower, Powercor and United Energy for a kerbside electric vehicle (EV) charging trial until mid-2031. The waiver will allow installation of up to 100 EV chargers (which must include at least 5% vehicle-to-grid chargers) to test, analyse and publicly report on how kerbside EV charging can be used to manage local network constraints, improve voltage stability, and shift demand away from peak periods.

Technology

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Fortescue Metals (ASX: FMG) says the giant electric haul trucks it will use to replace its trucking fleet are “diesel equivalent options now” that will save money while also driving decarbonisation efforts. (Renew Economy)

Climate

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The verdict is in: To comply with the law, COP30 must deliver, Senior Attorney for the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for International Environmental Law Erika Lennon writes.

People

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Iberdrola Australia appointed outgoing Powerlink CEO Paul Simshauser as its CEO. Current CEO Ross Rolfe will step down but continue in his role as Chairman.

The AER appointed Kieran Donoghue (Chair) and Ron Ben-David to a Consumer Reference Group (CRG) and a panel of Eligible Experts — David Johnstone, Dinesh Kumareswaran, and Graham Partington — for its 2026 Rate of Return Instrument (RORI) review.

AEMO Non Executive Director and former AusNet Services CEO Nino Ficca joined energy startup PolarBlue as a strategic adviser.

South32 (ASX: S32) Chair Karen Wood will retire from the board in February 2026 and will be succeeded by board member Stephen Pearce.

Research

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Critical minerals used in clean energy technology have the greatest potential to become important for the Australian economy but the outlook is uncertain and, in the near term, based on projects currently underway and announced, growth in production is likely to remain subdued, the Reserve Bank warned in a research bulletin.

Random

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Mosquitoes have been spotted in Iceland for the first time ever, a development thought to be linked to climate change. (WashPo)

What's On

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October 27​
​The real costs of the transition

Powerlink CEO Paul Simshauser will speak at this lunchtime webinar brought to you by us here at The Energy, alongside Aurecon Managing Director, Energy (Australia) Paul Gleeson, and Southerly Ten Chief Development Officer Erin Coldham, moderated by Beyond Zero Emissions CEO Heidi Lee.

October 29-30​
All Energy Australia

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio, incoming Clean Energy Council CEO Jackie Trad and Pacific Green CEO Joel Alexander are among the speakers at this year’s All Energy event in Melbourne.

November 5​
WA Energy Outlook

Rebecca Brown, Director General of WA’s Department of Energy and Economic Diversification, Horizon Power EGM Future Energy Vi Garrood, and EDL CEO James Harman are among the speakers at this CEDA event in Perth.

November 5​
National Press Club

Outgoing ASIC Chair Joe Longo will address the National Press Club on “Open for opportunity: Taking charge of the future of our financial markets” at this Canberra event.

November 6​
ANU Solar Oration

Merryn York, who has led system design at AEMO, will speak at this Canberra event, following an opening statement by ACT Energy Minister Suzanne Orr.

November 12​
National Press Club

Japan’s Ambassador to Australia Kazuhiro Suzuki will address the National Press Club on "Girt by sea and in the same boat: 50 years of Japan-Australia relations and beyond” at this Canberra event.

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