Media

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance and former stockbroker, agrees with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that the public benefit from Brookfield’s ambitious plan outweighs competition concerns raised by its ownership of Victorian poles and wires business AusNet Services. “At the end of the day, we do have an energy crisis, a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis. And all three of them can be solved by unlocking a huge amount of capital at speed and scale in alignment with building new capacity,” Buckley tells The Australian Financial Review. Read more

As Tim Buckley asks: What kind of game is AustralianSuper, the country’s biggest super fund, playing with Origin Energy? It is shaping up to scuttle a bid by Canadian fund manager Brookfield et al to acquire Australia’s largest power company, gentailer Origin Energy, and transition it to renewables and storage with a ~$30bn investment – a mammoth capital injection that will be transformative for Australian decarbonisation. What is AustralianSuper offering as its alternative plan? Higher electricity prices, slower decarbonisation and more climate destruction? If it kills the deal, will it step up and guarantee a $30bn commitment to decarbonising Origin? If not, why not? If it has no legitimate answer to these questions, it should get out of the way. Read more

CEF partner and advisory board member, Blair Palese, founder of the Climate Capital Forum, makes a powerful case for Australia to step up its transition investment ambition ahead of COP and in light of the US Inflation Reduction Act. Read more

Victoria’s State Electricity Commission (SEC) has been reintroduced in a move that is hoped will crowd-in investment into renewables in the state. Tim Buckley told FS Sustainability that some are concerned that public capital may crowd out private capital. “The key challenge that the SEC has to actually work to crowd in private capital,” Buckley said. “I think that risk is real, but it’s more than outweighed by the benefits to the people of Victoria.” He sees renewables as a “solution to the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis… More competition means more supply and lower prices.” Read more

Our op ed on PM Albanese’s state visit to the US. While the visit was touted as a platform for major announcements on investment into an Australian response to the game-changing Inflation Reduction Act, there was a lot of talk, but only $2bn for Australian critical minerals – entirely insufficient relative to the scale of our opportunity to lead the world in processing of minerals onshore. Read our full analysis. Read more

Tim Buckley in Tasmanian Times: “Offshore wind is a key scaleable decarbonisation solution for the world. Installations globally are expected to increase dramatically this coming decade as China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India and the US all look to leverage the massive experience achieved in Europe over the last decade. There is an enormous pipeline of investment proposals in this new field emerging globally.” Read more

Tim Buckley said planning is needed for consecutive developments proposed across Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia to cover the high set-up costs for a domestic manufacturing supply chain. “We need to weigh up the additional costs related to offshore wind construction and see where it makes the most economic sense,” he said. Read more

A profound investment surge in renewables, heat pump, batteries and EV manufacturing capacity globally is underway, with annual global manufacturing capacities of each due to double every 24 months at the current run rate, Tim Buckley of Climate Energy Finance (CEF) told MWM. Read more

Tim Buckley welcomes the NSW government to legislate climate change targets, he argues that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at Eraring power station is the wrong decision, and the environment can’t afford the delay of the closure of Eraring. Read more

Tim Buckley, discussed Australia’s energy landscape. Tim highlights the impact of climate change on the energy sector and the need for a balanced approach to address energy, cost of living, and climate crises. He also explains the potential benefits of projects like the Marinus Link and provides insight into wholesale power prices and their potential impact on retail prices in Tasmania. Read more

The Manly Daily reports meteorologists are predicting a hot, dry summer over the 2023-24 season, with a significantly increased risk of bushfires. A Northern Beaches community forum, with a panel of experts to discuss the implications and how to prepare and respond will be hosted by Mackellar MP Dr Sophie Scamps, and feature Tim Buckley, Greg Mullins, former Commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) and Dr Simon Bradshaw, author and Research Director at the Climate Council independent research charity. Read more

As Elizabeth Thurbon et al write in The Lowy Interpreter, the Australian Renewable Industry Package is a $100 billion, ten-year green energy transition package proposed by a coalition of groups including Climate Energy Finance, the Smart Energy Council, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. This was no knee-jerk or panicked effort, but a considered view on a proportionate Australian response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a $520 billion bipartisan bid to secure US dominance in the high-wage, high-tech green industries of the future. The IRA is now sucking a good deal of green energy investment away from Australia, requiring a policy response from Canberra commensurate with Australia’s generational opportunity. Read more