The episode discusses the booming battery energy storage market in Australia and its implications for the global energy landscape.
Spark Club Podcast recorded on 31 October 2025 Highlights BESS deployments booming in Australia Batteries are the biggest disruptive force in global energy markets in 2025. Australia becomes world's third-largest utility battery market. Australia has overtaken the UK to rank behind China and the US in utility-scale battery capacity, with 14GW/37GWh of projects at or nearing financial close. Rystad Energy estimates the Australian pipeline of battery projects jumped 45GW in one year from 109GW in August 2024 to 154GW now. Meanwhile Minister Bowen is rightly crowing about the >100,000 home battery installs so far. Worth noting the world's largest hybrid BESS by MASDAR in the UAE, a 5GW solar and 19GWh BESS designed to provide 1GW of 24/7 power supply commenced construction this week. And AEMO's new 3Q2025 Quarterly Energy Dynamics report reveals that average wholesale electricity prices across the National Electricity Market, fell to $87/MWh, down 27% on the same quarter last year. AEMO says the surge in battery storage – up an average 461MW in the evening peaks – clearly had an impact on other peaking generation sources, with gas fired generation down 11%. All of these factors also…
Host: Grant McDowell
Guest: Tim Buckley
Organizations: Rystad Energy, AEMO, MASDAR
Places: Australia, UAE, China
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Spark Club Podcast podcast page.