Feb 22, 2026
Grant McDowell & Tim Buckley– Spark Club Podcast 19 Feb 2026
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Hi and welcome to Spark Club podcast. I’m your host Grant McDowell.
We are recording this podcast on the Garigal lands of the Eora
nation and pay our respects to elders past and present.
Welcome.
And welcome Tim Buckley.
Highlights
Domestic firmed RE deployment
The
Clean Energy Council’s 4Q2025 Investment Report
demonstrates a rebound in large-scale renewable energy and storage
investment across Australia. The quarter delivered record
commissioning outcomes across generation and batteries, strong
financial close activity.
Five renewable generation projects (1.2 GW) and 5 storage projects
(1.1 GW) reached FID during 4Q2025, with total capex >$4 billion
across generation, storage and hybrid assets.
newly commissioned renewable and storage projects. Nine generation
projects were completed totalling 2.1GW of new. 4 storage projects
(1.9 GW / 4.9 GWh) became operational, beating records broken in Q3
2025, reinforcing Australia’s accelerating energy transition.
The forward pipeline remains robust. There are currently 81
generation projects (13GW) and 75 storage projects (13 GW / 35GWh)
either financially committed or under construction.
This month started with NSW
awarding contracts to six huge 8-hour battery projects,
including one of the biggest in Australia – the 300MW and 3,500
megawatt hour Great Western BESS, All are due to be completed by
2030, and some are supersized above eight hours of storage. 1.2 GW
and 12 GWh of long duration storage, massively further undermining
the role of methane and PHS.
This week also saw
NSW announce an extra tender for more firmed renewables capacity
to fill looming coal gap under Long-Term Energy Service
Agreements (LTESAs) to leverage the fast to deploy BESS and solar
leveraging infill opportunities across NSW and importantly,
leverage the Battery boom to get more zero emissions generation
into the mix.
CBAM KEY TO GREEN COMMODITY OPPORTUNITY: JOTZO
REVIEW
Professor Frank Jotzo's Carbon Leakage Review Report to Climate and
Energy Minister Chris Bowen is finally public.
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/carbon-leakage-review-final-report
We agree with the review’s finding that measures additional to the
Safeguard Mechanism “may be required and desirable over time, for
specific commodities at high exposure to carbon leakage risk in
domestic markets…. A border carbon adjustment would be the most
suitable option in these cases… [to] support the emergence of green
commodity production in Australia, harnessing this country’s
opportunities to be a major contributor to global industrial
decarbonisation through exports.”
It is clear that we need a price signal to drive decarbonisation of
trade-exposed Australian industries through the extensive buildout
of renewables infrastructure at speed and scale.
Critical to all of the above is a price on carbon, leveraging and
enhancing our domestic actions so as to provide a stronger signal
for development of carbon pricing in international trade, and
building on the price signal of the EU CBAM with an Asian CBAM, as
we argued in our 2025 report. This would help catalyse investment
into industrial decarbonisation at a speed and scale commensurate
with the climate emergency and the green economy opportunity.
GM - I’d like to pick up on minor issue relating to the design of
the REGO in Australia replacing the LGC.
The calculation mechanism for the Australian REGO is out of sync
with the global standard. The REGO certificate is limited to the
1MWh per certificate rather than down to the watt hour per trading
period. Sounds trivial but the REGO has a fundamental flaw as it
requires the excess to be rolled over into the next trading period.
This volume won’t be accepted in the EU, meaning there will be
small amounts of energy volume which can’t be counted for every
half hour trading period for the year.
This flaw creates numerous problems as a global energy matching
standard emerges in a number of forms;
- CBAMs in EU and Asia
- Green product standards - green hyrdogen green steel.
- and likely changes to GHGP Scope 2 in 2027.
This minor flaw is annoying and with a minor change to the REGO now
we can save Australian exporters a world of pain for years to
come.
Middle Powers Highlight
As the Middle Powers are a big topic for us this year, was there
anything that jumped out to you since our last conversation?
EV Buses in India
Tim - KKR investment in electric buses in India. EV busses in India
are now 30% lower total cost of ownership relative to diesel
alternatives. The 30% cost advantage was enough to get KR over the
line to put capital into rolling out EV buses in India.
Australia risks being wedged.
Australia must be open to international trade with all nations and
avoid being wedged between China and the US.
Lowlights
Whyalla
The SA Government has shelved their green hydrogen plans last year,
and now the SA Treasurer has overtly flagged their intention to
double down on the false dreams of a
gas led recovery for the Whyalla Steelworks.
Meanwhile this week saw the SA Premier provide a joint
Federal-State $20m support for the magnetite mining sector is SA to
boost 2Mtpa magnetite mining, a move we endorse.
As per CEF’s report last year, we think the government should
support a multiphase redevelopment of the iron ore to green steel
sector of SA by expanding magnetite mining and supporting a new
greenfield RE-powered EAF to replace the beyond end of life blast
furnace, and to ensure steel supply for downstream fabrication.
Secondly our governments should use a chunk of the $500m Green iron
investment fund to support semi-commercial scale deployments of
Australian technologies to produce decarbonised iron and steel,
namely a pilot Element Zero electrolyte green iron plant, a second
30ktpa Calix ZESTY magnetite to green iron plant and a 8ktpa
BioCarbon plant, plus incentivising scrap steel recycling within
state to feed the new EAF, with the majority of the input material
imported for the first 5 years of operation.
A phase 2 in the early 2030s would be to build a GH2 and RE powered
green iron plant once the economics are stronger, and a path
towards an Asian CBAM is better established.
Main Story –
Local content mandate – Ministers Ayres and Bowen are holding a
rapid industry consultation about a new Future Made in
Australia (FMIA) policy to incentivise local wind tower
and transmission tower manufacturing.
CEF has worked over the last year with an industry consortium and
we pitched this exact policy initiative to the minister in
December.
Our recommendation was a policy with four pronged policy
- A 20% national mandate for wind tower local content, leveraging and collaborating with low cost Chinese suppliers
- A Production Credit to ensure the policy doesn’t increase the cost of wind power to consumers
- A clear long term volume target of 4GW of new wind annually to underpin factory utilisation
- Capex assistance for the new factories required.
Interesting to see the EU this week do boosting local content
mandates, The EU's upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act could signal
a pivotal moment for green steel producers in northern Sweden. New
"Made in Europe" rules are thought to require at least 25%
low-carbon steel in public procurement and subsidy-backed projects.
Green hydrogen-based production, electric arc furnaces, and
scrap-based methods are, according to Bloomberg, explicitly
highlighted as priority technologies.
What’s coming up?
Tim is attending the community engagement in the Hunter Valley this
week, to help build social licence, and then over the next couple
of weeks attending and speaking at a number of conferences e.g.
Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leaders (CISL) Group in
Melbourne and Sydney and the Clean Energy Investor Group conference
(CEIG) annual investor conference in Melbourne, Climate Action Week
in Sydney the following week, then the Sydney Storage
conference.