Highlights from the Australian market
- The NSW government has tabled a bill to let MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine keep expanding to 16.5 million tonnes a year until 2032, after the High Court found in October that the mine’s approval was invalid because it did not consider Scope 3 emissions from exported coal.
- The $7.2 billion Cheaper Home Batteries Scheme could be cut, with Treasury reportedly drafting options including a lower upfront subsidy as ministers look for savings before the mid-year budget update. The Prime Minister has not ruled out means-testing the scheme, which has seen about 600,000 home batteries installed since 2025.
- Queensland holds half of Australia’s proposed onshore wind capacity, with $5.8 billion of projects funded or under construction, but projects there take the longest to build of any state, at about three years on average. Experts quoted cite community opposition, planning uncertainty, slow transmission build-out and higher costs.
- At COP31 in Türkiye, countries are debating a “35 by 35” pledge to lift electricity to 35% of global energy use by 2035, up from 23% today, as its wording does not require the electricity to come from clean sources.
- Gas is set to back up power for proposed data centres in South Australia and WA. South Australia has cleared the way for gas-fired power to firm supply for AI data centres, a shift from its renewables-focused Data Centre Strategy, and Gingerah Energy says its proposed 1,000 MW data centre near Broome will run mostly on renewables, with backup gas bought from the domestic market rather than fracked gas.
- The NSW Independent Planning Commission has approved Goldwind Capital’s 1,400 MW Baldon Wind Farm near Hay in the South West Renewable Energy Zone, which will have 175 turbines up to 300 metres tall, 100 metres taller than any operating in NSW.
- The war in Iran is speeding up the global shift from fossil fuels, according to experts quoted by the ABC, with fuel prices and EV sales rising sharply. In Australia, battery electric cars outsold petrol cars in September and October.
- Perth’s largest electric bus depot is now running at Bayswater, with 67 chargers able to support 132 buses at first. It is part of a $250 million joint federal and WA government initiative that has put more than 200 locally built electric buses into service.
News from Japan
- Chubu Electric Power will record a write-down of about ¥315 billion (~AUD 3 billion) for FY26, due to the ongoing inability to restart its Hamaoka nuclear plant, which is held up over falsified records submitted to the government. Chubu says decommissioning Units 3 and 4, which are waiting to restart, is “not a scenario they are contemplating” at this time.
- ENEOS has written down more than ¥111 billion (~AUD 1 billion) on its renewables business and paused new onshore wind projects, though projects already under development will continue for now. The CEO said rising costs and a market that doesn’t value renewable energy mean the company can’t reach final investment decisions on many projects at the moment.
- An offshore wind project off the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture (160 MW, 19 bottom-mounted 8 MW turbines) has been cancelled after Tokyo Gas withdrew in late October. The project had been due to start operating in 2026 but never began construction, and the Ibaraki municipal government has now dropped it.
- Octopus Energy has launched an Asia Electrification Fund at COP31, aiming to raise $600 million for clean energy projects across Asia, including Japan, with $50 million already committed by Japanese investors. Its first investment is in a Philippines developer targeting 450 MW of solar and 350 MWh of battery storage, enough to power more than 300,000 homes by 2030.
Podcast of the week
Zugzwang: 7 – Why are NEM prices so hard to forecast?
Jack Simpson is joined by Endgame analysts Trent Henderson and Rosalita Rosenberg to talk about forecasting in the NEM, why price spikes are so hard to predict, what machine learning and statistics can and can’t do, and what it’s like to bring data science skills in from outside energy.
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