There’s been some genuinely good news floating around this week, and given how relentlessly grim the news cycle has been, I want to actually sit with it for a moment before the cynicism kicks in. AEMO — the Australian Energy Market Operator — has released data showing that power prices dropped 12 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, driven by record levels of wind, solar, and the rapid expansion of grid-scale batteries. Renewables hit nearly 47 per cent of the energy mix. Gas, which has long been the expensive crutch propping up our evening peak demand, recorded its lowest share since 1999.

There’s a particularly delicious irony unfolding right now that would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly predictable. The same people who’ve spent years railing against renewable energy—telling us solar and wind are unreliable, that we need to stick with good old fossil fuels—are now the loudest voices complaining about fuel prices shooting through the roof.

You genuinely couldn’t write this stuff.

The whole situation has been brought into sharp focus with the current fuel crisis, and the responses I’ve been seeing online range from the darkly comedic to the genuinely infuriating. Someone pointed out that Barnaby Joyce was on ABC Insiders talking about building a new oil refinery. The same Barnaby Joyce whose government shut down six refineries when he was in power. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely staggering.

The tech industry’s latest revelation has been doing the rounds this week, and frankly, it’s both hilarious and deeply frustrating. Apparently, some AI experts visited China and returned “stunned” by the state of America’s power grid compared to China’s surplus capacity. The hot take? The U.S. might have already lost the AI race because their electricity infrastructure is, to put it mildly, absolute rubbish.

Now, I’m sitting here wondering: did these folks really need to travel halfway around the world to figure out that decades of underinvestment in basic infrastructure might come back to bite them? Anyone who’s lived through a Texas winter storm or a California heat wave could have saved them the airfare.

The announcement of Labor’s $2.3 billion home battery subsidy scheme has sparked intense discussions across various forums. While many homeowners are celebrating the prospect of more affordable energy storage solutions, there’s a deeper conversation we need to have about equity and access in our transition to renewable energy.

Looking through the comments and discussions online, there’s clear excitement from homeowners who’ve been waiting for this kind of initiative. Many report significant benefits from existing battery installations - from near-zero power bills to maintaining power during outages. The technology clearly works, and works well.