- 77
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- 2018
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About Spark Club Podcast
Spark Club brings entrepreneurs in the energy field together with a common objective, to build energy businesses. We draw on each others experience to support, learn and grow energy businesses. The podcasts are hosted by Grant McDowell and are recordings of our Fireside chat with leaders in the energy transition.
- Publisher
- Grant McDowell
- Category
- business · business
- Language
- en
- Explicit
- No
- First episode
- 28 Mar 2018
- Latest episode
- 26 Oct 2026
Latest episodes
77 episodes in the feed.
26 Oct 2026
Australia's Energy Transition Powers On - Tim Buckley Ep77
Spark Club Podcast hosted by Grant McDowell with regular guest Tim Buckley from Climate Energy Finance. Highlights – China Generation 9MCY2026 China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Ember have released the power generation data for September 2026 showing thermal generation declined ⬇️ 1.1% yoy for the month, following the decline of ⬇️ 4.1% yoy for the month of August 2026. With thermal power generation up just ⬆️ 0.8% yoy YTD 2026, and the growth rate fading as 2026 has progressed, it is line ball if thermal power will be flat for the year, but it is likely to be below the peak thermal power generation set back in 2024 (& a ⬇️ 0.7% yoy decline in CY2025), despite 4-5% pa total electricity demand growth in China over this period. Some highlights in September 2026: ⚡ Total power generation grew modestly by ⬆️ 0.9% year-on-year for the month. ☀️ solar output surged ⏫ 16.1% yoy YTD, accounting for a 13.2% share of total generation 🌬️ wind grew ⬆️ 4.9% year-to-date, contributing 10.6%. In the month of September alone, growth was even more pronounced, with wind ⏫ 16.1% yoy. Coal generation fell ⬇️ 1.5% yoy to 465TWh in the month of September, marking its third consecutive monthly decline; however, the decline rate slowed compared to August 2026. Highlights – Minister Bowen's BYONCE for Data Centres Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen have committed that data centre development approvals will be contingent on BYONCE – Bring Your Own New Clean Energy and that this will be legislated nationally. The signs are promising, but there is a risk of a Federal walk-back of ambition, with Minister Ayres this week referencing the need to bring New Energy, rather than New Clean Energy, given the industry lobbyists keep harping on about a race and how they will pivot from a NSW/Vic focus to Qld or go offshore to ASEAN if they don't get their way. The industry is risking its social licence, a massive threat given approvals are the key barrier. Its been interesting examining the progress this month of Singapore's Zerra DC's proposed A$32bn Western Downs Digital Park at Dalby, 200km west of Brisbane. At the end of its four-phase rollout, it could draw 2.2GW pa of electricity. It is excellent to see Zerra DC committing to building a positive social licence to operate, including local jobs, a substantial community benefit agreement & air rather than water cooling (this proposal is in a region of regular water scarcity). Zerra DC estimates that the data centre precinct could provide up to 1,400 permanent jobs by the time all 4 phases are built over the coming decade. Zerra DC says its committed to prioritising permanent local employment. Climate Energy Finance sees this as a key to building its social licence to operate, but we do need to see enforcement of this commitment over the multi-decade project life as part of its Community Benefits Agreement & approval, with material consequences if fancy words at the outset do not translate to a reality once the enabling approvals are given. Lowlights – Treasury models Australia's imported diesel addiction A Parliamentary FOI shows that Treasury models Australia's imported diesel addiction is forecast to rise another 9% by 2030, despite Australia already ranking #1 globally in terms of diesel imports Australia's Treasury forecasts our reliance on imported diesel will to continue rising this decade, not withstanding the doubling of global diesel prices due to Trump's open-ended war on Iran that has highlighted our massive energy security exposure. It is great to see the surge in EV & hybrid cars, outselling internal combustion engine vehicles for the first time in Australia in August-September 2026. But we need to do so much more in terms of investments in enabling charging infrastructure nationally. Now would be a brilliant time for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers to use Minister Chris Bowen's Safeguard Mechanism Review to underpin a pivot of the $11bn annual imported diesel subsidy to incentivise electrification and decarbonisation of the Australian mining and freight industries. This is a massive energy security enhancement opportunity for Australia. Lowlights – Oil Majors reported a record US$32bn uplift from war profiteering 5 of the world's largest international oil majors are facing a $32bn dilemma over what to do with the huge windfalls from the conflict in the Middle East. Higher executive bonuses? Bigger share buybacks? Bigger dividends! What a dilemma! ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies and BP collectively earned more than US$75bn in adjusted profits in 1HCY2026, up 75% yoy from the US$43bn they earned in the same period of 2025, while their free cash flow has nearly doubled. CEF continues to support advocacy efforts to try to get these multinationals making windfalls from public Australian assets to share some of this war profiteering, particularly at times of exceptionally high commodity prices. Main Story – Building Momentum on the Australian Electricity Sector Transformation to lock in coal plant closure certainty Australia has in September 2026 had its second time in history where renewable energy generation exceeded fossil fuel generation for the month. Open Electricity shows Australia's NEM is running at 47.1% (https://lnkd.in/p/gA_UiYuD) renewable energy share in the 12 months to September 2026, up from 42.6% a year ago. The Clean Energy Regulator shows Renewable Energy investment is finally lifting. FIDs for large-scale renewable generation of 5.0GW already reaching a new annual record in 2026, with 3 months still to go. 2.1GW of large-scale renewable capacity reached FID in 3QCY2026, the equal highest quarterly result. That brings total renewable FID 2026 YTD to 5.0GW, already higher than the previous full-year record of 4.9GW. The CER shows 1.1 GW of wind capacity reached FID in 3QCY2026, the highest quarter on record for wind. 3QCY2026 solar FID were 1 GW, taking Australia to 3.5GW in 9MCY2026, a new annual record for the technology. Last week saw the Victorian Government approve one of the largest proposed wind farm in the southern hemisphere. WestWind Energy's $5bn, 219-turbine Warracknabeal Energy Park wind farm of a proposed 1.5GW capacity – delivering ~12% of Victoria's future energy needs. The site will also host two 300MW/600MWh BESS to enhance grid reliability & time-shift power to when most needed. This week saw the South Australian government unveil 13GW of new project proposals across four new renewable energy developments that would quadruple SA's grid-scale wind & solar capacity to underpin the next era of green industrial growth in the state. The plans include a 6GW wind & solar development by Australian developer Windlab, a separate 4.7GW wind & solar proposal from Altra Energy SA, a 1.6GW wind farm from Heron Energy and a smaller 360MW solar proposal from Neoen Australia. The new Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEO Paul McCartney is looking to provide much greater financial support to get more wind project proposals to FID & into construction. Great to see Government SIVs mobilising cleantech deployments & crowding in private capital. 🔋 Meanwhile the Cheaper Home Batteries Program has reached 15.3GWh total, up from 2GWh at the same time last year, a massive government policy success. ☀️ Rooftop solar added 90,000 installations and 894MW of capacity in the September quarter, while YTD 2026 rooftop solar capacity is 45% higher yoy. Australia is on track for a 4GW of rooftop solar record, a third higher than the 5 year average, a massive positive flow on benefit from the Federal Government's success with the home battery scheme. And 2027 is likely to see this accelerate further thanks to the 20% capital subsidy introduced by Minister Bowen from Oct'2026 for C&I rooftop solar. What's coming up? 25-29th October 2026 Bunbury in SW WA I'll be speaking at the Innovative Industries of the Future 2026 Regional Conference 1-3 November 2026 I'll be in Canberra at the ANU at a bilateral Australia-China high level dialogue on Steel Sector Decarbonisation. 12-15th November 2026 I'll be joining Mara Bun at the Lyrebird Festival in Megalong Valley, NSW for a music, nature walks and nature talks 19-20 November 2026 I'll be in Guangzhou at the UQ hosted bilateral Australia-China Iron and Steel Partnership in Transition dialogue. And Korea announces AUD$1 trillion into the energy transition. Key market signal for Australia.
27 Sept 2026
Changes to the Safeguard Mechanism - Tim Buckley -Ep76
Highlights – Minister Bowen's BYONCE for Data Centres The federal government and Energy Minister Chris Bowen have committed that data centre development approvals will be contingent on BYONCE – Bring Your Own New Clean Energy. The signs are promising –The Energy reports a consultation paper has been released by the federal government that confirmed that the Clean Energy Regulator would use the Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) scheme to ensure that data centres contract for renewable energy that is genuinely additional to existing sources and aligned with BYONCE. Highlights – China Generation 8MCY2026 China's total power generation growth slowed to 0.9% yoy in August 2026, while zero-emissions generation grew 8.8% yoy, more than offsetting demand growth and driving a second consecutive monthly decline in fossil fuel generation. Coal generation fell by 4.3% yoy. Solar remained the #2 generation source at 13.1% YTD, ahead of wind at 10.8%, while zero-emissions sources supplied 42.3% of total generation. 8 months into 2026, China's national emissions continue to plateau, six years ahead of 2030. Lowlights – BHP's FY2026 Annual Report confirms their shameful climate walkback In May, Angus Grigg & Maryanne at ABC 4Corners and The Guardian's Christopher Knaus and Adam Morton gave us the big reveal – BHP was locking in diesel fossil fuel use in its Pilbara operations and effectively reversing its commitments on emissions reduction while telling the public it was going green. This highlighted the shameful climate science denialism of the BHP board under Chair Ross McEwan and new CEO Brandon Craig. Four months later, last week we got the big middle finger with confirmation that BHP's emissions in 2035 will be a reported 33% higher than previously expected. The board had listened to its shareholders and the climate scientists and decided to totally ignore them. CEF continues to lobby the government to turn the $3bn annual subsidy to imported diesel for the mining sector into a TTI, a tailwind to energy security and decarbonisation. Lowlights – Sanjeev Gupta is taking the piss, still Reading veteran ABC journalist Paul Barry's insightful book "The Big Steal" reveals the massive ongoing global fraud being perpetrated by international master scammer, who literally bled Whyalla Steelworks dry. I continue to highlight this because Gupta somehow still controls InfraBuild, a firm employing 4,500 Australians and is in all likelihood according to Barry's book trading while insolvent for potentially a decade, yet ASIC is dead silent on this. ASIC asleep at the wheel, again. Main Story – CEF's Safeguard Mechanism Submission Matt Pollard led on CEF's submission to the DCCEEW consultation on the 2026 Safeguard Mechanism Review — an review required to strengthen the Federal Government's flagship policy for driving emissions reduction and fossil fuel abatement across industry. CEF's submission is grounded in enhancing the existing policy framework and improving the effectiveness of the integrated structure of the Safeguard Mechanism, the ACCU Scheme, and the Nature Repair Market. This is key to building investor confidence in deploying capital into on-site abatement for industrial facilities under the Safeguard, and patient capital into nature-based solutions that deliver critical co-benefits in nature repair. CEF sees it as imperative that industry, regulators, investors, landholders and the academic community focus on enhancing the standard and integrity of this structure, and not on abandoning this model. Markets work best with a price signal, and 'polluter pays' is a longstanding core market principle Australia needs to enhance, not discard. Australia has an incredible opportunity to harness the scalability of compliance carbon markets to build a world-scale structure to sustainably generate significant positive outcomes that restore, conserve, and protect Australia's natural capital, and simultaneously create the critical investment signal of a rising price on carbon, supported by fundamentals that will drive such market conditions, catalysing large-scale capital deployment into on-site abatement in industry. Australia's opportunity, and challenge, is in forming market conditions, improving investor confidence and market participation, and ensuring system integrity and stakeholder buy-in. This is key to ensuring the integration of the ACCU Scheme with the Safeguard Mechanism to incentivise high-quality abatement and investment into nature-based solutions while simultaneously not limiting or hindering onsite emissions reductions at industrial facilities. CEF's submission was focussed upon broadening and deepening the policy settings of the Safeguard Mechanism, recommending: Establishing a progressively rising real price floor in the Safeguard Mechanism through purchasing option or reverse auction structures in the ACCU market to increase demand when secondary market prices fall below a rising floor. The Federal Government introduce a significantly greater carbon price liability for entities that exceed their Safeguard baselines by >30% through the purchasing of credits from the Government at a significant market premium over the purchase price paid through price floor auctions. The Federal Government introduce an Australian CBAM for product variables currently most associated with trade-exposed, baseline adjustment (TEBA) concessions to level the playing field for trade-exposed commodities without hindering the decarbonisation of industry and limiting new, low-emissions manufacturing and value-adding capacity to compete in the domestic market with emissions-intensive counterparts. The Safeguard Mechanism be expanded more effectively to the electricity sector to accelerate the phase out of fossil fuel-based generation and support the deployment of critical renewable energy generation, ideally aligned to ensure coal plant closure timetable certainty. The Safeguard Mechanism floor be lowered to 75,000tpa as an efficient next step extension. The Federal Government investigate the potential introduction of Carbon Contracts-for-Difference (CCfD) to accelerate investment into decarbonisation capex for captured facilities — where the current cost of compliance for Safeguard is met from ACCUs and SMCs as the lowest-cost abatement method. Our recommendations are centred upon absorbing lessons from international best practice and the development of carbon pricing mechanisms across the world, and in particular, our key trading partners in Northeast Asia. Link to CEF submission What's coming up? 13-14 October 2026 Annual Industrial Net Zero Summit in Sydney 25-29th October 2026 Bunbury in SW WA I'll be speaking at the Innovative Industries of the Future 2026 Regional Conference
5 Sept 2026
China is Electrifying Everything - Tim Buckley - Ep75
Spark Club Podcast - Ep75 - 3rd September 2026 Highlights – CEF's field trip to China CATL, XCMG and China Hongqiao Group Tim Buckley and Matt Pollard's three highlights from their China trip in August: CATL: RD&D: CATL invested an annualised RMB22.7bn (A$2.3bn) in R&D in 1HCY2026, up 13% y-o-y, with 22,000 staff deployed in RD&D, including 700 professors, with >60,000 patent applications and 17 new patents being borne daily! Extensive use of data, robots & analysis means CATL targets an error rate of 1 part per billion! China Hongqiao Group is China's #2 integrated aluminium producer, and they toured the largest single-site aluminium smelter in the world, 4x the capacity of Tomago in Newcastle. This smelter has reduced its annual emissions by 32Mtpa since 2020, with a lot more reductions underway. XCMG: CEF joined Fortescue & XCMG at the largest commercial deployment of autonomous EV mining vehicles at China Huaneng Group's 35Mtpa open cut opencut coal mine in Inner Mongolia. The highlight was the confirmation that having successfully deployed 100 autonomous EV mining trucks in May 2025, by Sept'2026 this will double to 200 and then treble to 300 trucks by Nov'2026, 18 months ahead of the original 3 year rollout. Follow the money – one of the largest coal mining utilities in the world sees this technology as commercial, even as BHP and Rio Tinto continue with their climate walk back. Highlights – Asian Carbon markets progress Matt and Tim attended a full day session in Beijing with 30 people from the greater Asian region to discuss China's carbon market expansion, and the progress on carbon market developments from India to Thailand, Korea and Philippines. A key point was made by China's Assistant Director General of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment that climate markets are an integral part of China's sustainable economic development. The focus is on building momentum towards greater Asian regional cooperation in carbon market development, particularly in regional trade so as to extend and leverage the EU ETS and CBAM. It was great to hear Minister Bowen last month talk about his push for a path to an Australian CBAM, particularly as it was followed by his Australian meeting late August 2026 with China's Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, for the 10th Australia-China Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Change. Lowlights – The WA by-election last week Not only did ONP win a strong 57% two-party share of the total vote and take the seat of Secret Harbour, but the WA ALP fielded Woodside's ex lobbyist as their candidate, and Woodside was one of the largest donors to her election campaign. Yet more evidence of the state capture of the WA government by the fossil gas industry. Main Story – My keynote presentation this week to the RE Construction Summit This week Tim is presenting in Sydney at the Renewable Energy Construction Summit, see presentation is available via CEF's website. Main themes are: #1 We are making strong progress on the journey to 82% RE and beyond, even if we are tracking 1-2 years behind Minister Chris Bowen's ambitious 2030 target. The 12 month moving average for RE share hit a record high of 46.9% in August 2026. Rooftop solar installs are on track for an all time record high of 4GW in CY2026, up a third on the last 5 years' average. This is supported by the 2,000 home battery installs per day being delivered thanks to Minister Bowen's massively successful program. And rooftop C&I is finally set to surge with Bowen's latest incentive program, all leveraging the existing grid and thereby lowering average retail electricity prices for all. And while AEMO's new ESOO flags a record 9.1GW of net new generation and storage capacity (utility and CER) was added in FYU2026, almost 3x that of the last five years, the reality is we need to see progress rise another 50% and then sustain that for the next decade. The CER's August 2026 report highlights that another cumulative 7.5GW of utility scale renewables capacity has reached FID but yet to be commissioned, with a record 32.2GW in the CER's probable category. Progress is being made, but we must see this accelerate, and for this to happen, we must see project proposals that have won CIS leverage this and get to FID and into construction. The only way we get coal plant closures is by building replacement renewable generation capacity beyond what is needed to cover the ongoing growth in electrification, including EVs and data centres. What's coming up? Later this week Tim is off to Adelaide for a German-Australia green iron and steel roundtable, followed by attending the Asia Hydrogen Summit, where Tim is moderating a panel on path to commercialisation and deployments Next week TIm is off to Canberra with Prof. Liz Thurbon and Oliver Yates to meet with the Chinese Embassy to suggest ways for greater bilateral China-Australia collaboration, and meeting with Treasury again re the FTC reform Then Tim will be going to the Gold Coast to see a potential battery assembly factory with eLumina, then talking at a community event on China's energy transition hosted by Mara Bun with Annastacia Palaszczuk, Chair of the Advanced Materials & Battery Council, and like me, a massive fan of seeing first hand China's energy system transformation and the opportunities for greater Australia-China collaboration. The following week Tim will join a Canberra Parliament delegation (including Mick Liubinskas' VC event on the 16th), then he's speaking at an Ethinvest event in Melbourne on the evening of the 16th, then a Sydney Freight Electrification event on the 17th then talking at the Everything Electric Sydney event on 18th Sept. End
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