The scandal of Vales Point

The sorry saga of Vales Point Power Station in recent years highlights the muddled political thinking – and opportunistic private profit taking – which bedevil the energy sector to the detriment of the public it ostensibly serves.

Six ways to cut your hot water bill

Soaring electricity bills and the prospect of a hot, dry summer should encourage consumers to find ways to save money and help the environment by economising on power and water.

Renewable backup power can boost disaster resilience

Households need more support to implement alternative energy solutions to help manage outages during bushfires and extreme weather events.

Using farm dams for pumped hydro storage

Tens of thousands of small-scale hydro energy storage sites could be built from Australia’s farm dams, supporting the uptake of reliable, low-carbon power systems in rural communities.

Future nuclear options

There are several new technologies which may transform the nuclear industry, possibly lowering costs and improving flexibility, but such promises have been made for decades and renewables are already proving their worth.

Is nuclear power a solution for Australia?

Nuclear power has again been proposed as a long-term solution for Australia’s energy problems, but the engineering issues and high cost of these plants still mitigates against their adoption.

Supporting the transition

The Net Zero Authority must pursue inclusive and enduring policies that allow the nation to make an energy transformation that is politically and economically acceptable.

Distributed energy resources can cut home energy bills

Backed the right legislation, more rooftop solar and battery storage can lower electricity costs for consumers while distribution network costs, the largest component of household bills, can be cut by reforms to revenue regulation.

Australia’s power problem

Are blackouts really looming by the middle of this decade? An AEMO report warns they might be – but there are plenty of projects on the drawing board that will help ease the squeeze on the grid.

Cracking the hydrogen problem

Researchers have developed a cheaper and more energy-efficient way to make hydrogen directly from seawater, in a critical step towards a truly viable green hydrogen industry.

There lies the rub

A new material designed to harvest up to 400 times more energy from movement than currently possible has potential applications in biomedicine and geospatial monitoring.

How to quit coal

How do nations turn the rhetoric of the transition to clean energy into reality while sustaining economic prosperity and maintaining popular and political support?