For professional clients only. The information contained within this post is not intended for retail clients.
08 October 2026
When looking at large, industrialised major economies, Australia rates alongside the Unites States, Russia and Canada as one of the largest producers of CO2 emissions per capita. This is largely due to a coal-reliant power grid.
About a decade ago, a tornado swept through South Australia causing damage to two transmission lines that shut down the state’s grid for eight hours plunging the near one million residents into darkness. The state’s only coal power plant had closed just four months earlier. At that time wind and solar supplied 42% of South Australia’s electricity, a level only matched by Denmark. Famously Prime Minister Tony Abbott was quoted saying “trying to rely on renewables is mad”.
Fast forward to today and South Australia’s electricity generation has increased by nearly a quarter with renewables now providing three-quarters of the total. The expectation is that this will climb to 100% next year. Already photovoltaic electricity is so abundant that prices are often negative for up to one third of daylight hours.
In steps Elon Musk who bet tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brooks that he could install a 100 megawatt grid battery in South Australia within 100 days. The Hornsdale battery was duly installed on schedule.
We have discussed in previous articles the dramatic rise in the use of Electricity Storage Systems (ESS) in China. This technology has become fundamental to the green energy transition. Globally there are more than 300,000 megawatts of such battery capacity on the grid with the equivalent of three Hornsdales being installed every day.