Ampol’s AmpCharge gamble: EV chargers on the servo forecourt
Pulled into an Ampol on the Hume Highway just south of Yass a few weeks back, mid road trip, and there they were: two AmpCharge bays, one occupied by a Tesla Model Y, the other empty, sitting next to eight bowsers doing a much brisker trade. That’s the whole story of Ampol’s electrification bet in […]
ACEN Australia: the Philippines-backed builder behind New England Solar
Drive the New England Highway south out of Uralla on a clear afternoon and you’ll see it before you see much else: rows of panels running off toward Walcha, a substation compound with more transformers than you’d expect for a paddock, and a construction camp that’s shrunk from its peak but hasn’t gone away. That’s […]
Santos: Moomba’s carbon bet and the Narrabri gas standoff
The short version: Santos runs one of the biggest carbon capture projects on the planet in a paddock outside Innamincka, has spent the better part of a decade trying to get a gas field in northern New South Wales into production, and keeps turning up in every conversation about why the east coast might run […]
Alinta Energy: the quiet giant still burning coal
Roughly 1.1 million customers. A coal station that was supposed to close years ago. A Hong Kong billionaire as ultimate owner. And a retail business that competes in two of Australia’s most price-sensitive markets without making much noise about any of it. That is Alinta Energy in mid-2026, and the honest read is that very […]
GE Vernova in Australia: turbines, warranty trouble and a thinning market
Sixty-four turbines. That was the original plan for Tilt Renewables’ Rye Park Wind Farm in southern New South Wales — and GE Vernova’s 3.x-158 platform was selected to fill all of them. The project was one of the cleaner proofs that GE could still win large Australian onshore contracts after the chaotic global restructure that […]
Snowy Hydro: government giant, contested projects, uncertain returns
Snowy 2.0 has been under construction since tunnelling began in earnest in 2021, and five years on, Australians are still waiting. The project’s estimated completion date has moved more than once — the current position, as reflected in Snowy Hydro’s own public communications, is first power sometime in 2028, with full commissioning later still. The […]
AGL Energy: coal’s biggest landlord trying to check out early
Around 9,400 megawatts. That is roughly the combined thermal capacity AGL Energy has operated across Loy Yang A in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley and Bayswater in New South Wales’s Hunter Valley — more coal generation than any other single corporate entity in the National Electricity Market. The honest read is that every strategic announcement AGL makes […]
Akaysha Energy: BlackRock’s big battery bet on the NEM
Three hundred and fifty megawatts. That is the nameplate power capacity of the Waratah Super Battery, the New South Wales project that put Akaysha Energy on the map — and the number that still gets repeated in a lot of coverage without enough care about what comes after it. Let’s be careful with that number: […]
Squadron Energy: Andrew Forrest’s renewables bet, assessed
Three gigawatts. That’s roughly the combined generation capacity Squadron Energy was spruiking across its portfolio when Andrew Forrest’s private energy arm consolidated its holdings after the CWP Renewables acquisition settled in early 2023. Three years on, the gap between that headline number and what’s actually been commissioned, connected and generating into the National Electricity Market […]