Giles's recent articles
21 October 2025
'We can do this': Rio Tinto’s rapid switch to renewables shows path for quick exit from coal
You might be able to imagine the scene: An Australia sporting minister stands up in front of a vast audience to announce that something is simply not possible – it might be running 100 metres in 10 seconds, kicking a drop goal from 50 metres, or a swimming relay team beating a world record.
20 October 2025
Rooftop solar takes its biggest bite yet out of coal generators’ lunch, as home battery rebates hit 89,000
Rooftop solar on homes and businesses took its biggest bite yet out of the traditional “baseload” midday lunch on Wednesday, as the combined output hit a record of 15,597 megawatts (MW) at noon AEST.
17 October 2025
Fortescue cuts hundreds of jobs in UK and Australia; EV motor making sent to China
Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals is cutting several hundred jobs in the UK and Australia following a decision to send manufacturing activities to China, including for the motors and power trains of its planned giant electric haul trucks.
4 October 2025
'They need to get cracking': Bowen on renewable targets and LNP’s 'poor decisions' in Queensland
Federal Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen says he is not ready to give up on the country’s ambitious renewable energy targets for 2030, but concedes that energy companies “need to get cracking” to ensure enough wind and solar projects are delivered on time.
1 October 2025
Andrew Forrest makes big bet on self-lifting turbines in landmark 'real zero' deal with Envision
Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest appears to have gone all-in on a radical new “self-lifting” turbine technology that will underpin the development of his first major wind project and underpin his green energy ambitions.
19 September 2025
Australia’s modest climate target: This is what collective failure looks like
Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen was right about one thing: Not many people would be happy with the federal government’s newly announced 2035 emissions target. Some would think it too high and others too low.
12 September 2025
Australia’s business lobbies seem happy to let the country burn. What will federal Labor do?
It is the writer Oscar Wilde who is credited with the quote: “The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Although I do have to admit the first time I came across it was in a Doonesbury cartoon in the 1980s.
24 August 2025
'Who will look after the elderly?' Bush Summit is back, and so is Gina Rinehart’s dystopian net zero vision
The Australian Bush Summit is back – the Murdoch media’s annual regional roadshow sponsored by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, who is using the opportunity to present a highly dystopian vision of Australia as it heads towards net zero.
4 July 2025
'Watershed moment': Big battery storage prices hit record low in huge China auction
The price for big battery storage modules have hit a record low in the latest giant auction in China, where more than 70 bidders competed for 25 gigawatt hours of capacity in what is being described as a “watershed moment” for the industry.
2 July 2025
Australia’s decision-makers are ignoring climate, hailing coal and impersonating Elvis
You could barely believe that there is a climate crisis going on. In the same week that climate scientists suggested the world will exhaust its remaining carbon budget within two years, carbon bombs are being set off left, right and centre, or allowed through regulatory hurdles on the promise of buying dodgy offsets.
25 June 2025
'It changes everything': Plunging costs of PV and batteries mean 24-hour solar a growing reality
The plunging cost of solar PV and battery storage has opened up a new frontier in the transition to green energy, according to a new report, with cities and industries around the world now able to access low-cost, 24-hour solar generation.
9 June 2025
Dozens of big industries want to plug in to Australia’s first 100 pct net renewable (wind and solar) grid
The death of manufacturing? It’s a constant refrain among the conservative nut jobs on Murdoch’s Sky After Dark and within the far right elements of the federal Coalition, who insist that more wind and solar will be the death of industry in Australia.
29 May 2025
Australia is about to see a step change in its renewable transition strategy
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” Or so said the actor Jimmy Dean.
14 May 2025
Bowen confirmed as climate and energy minister, Watt gets environment
Chris Bowen has been confirmed as climate and energy minister in the new Albanese Government, while Murray Watt has been appointed minister for the environment and water as part of a reshuffle announced on Monday.
8 May 2025
Thirteen things on Labor’s climate and energy must-do list to change the system
The thumping victory for Labor in the weekend’s poll means that it is likely to be in power for at least another six years.
7 May 2025
Australia lays out red carpet for rapid green energy transition. Can Labor seize the moment?
What an opportunity Australia has before it.
22 March 2025
Giant eight-hour battery project changes hands as storage costs plunge 40%
A giant eight-hour battery project in New South Wales has changed hands in a deal that also confirms that battery storage costs — a critical part of the green energy transition — are still falling significantly.
21 March 2025
The Coalition MP who tried to stop the solar farm that will help save thousands of local jobs
If you ever need an example of the idiocy and the ignorance behind the Coalition and LNP campaign against renewable energy in Australia, a good place to start would be the federal MP for Flynn, Colin Boyce.
13 December 2024
CSIRO patiently and methodically slaps down Peter Dutton’s nuclear nonsense
Australia’s premier scientific organisation, the CSIRO, has patiently and methodically slapped down the major nuclear talking points promoted by Coalition leader Peter Dutton in its latest GenCost report, which confirms – yet again – that integrated wind and solar are easily the cheapest option.
15 November 2024
"The world’s greatest deceivers": Andrew Forrest takes aim at Woodside and Exxon
It didn’t take long after Donald Trump and the Republicans swept the polls in the US elections for the Australian fossil fuel industry and its political enablers to do what they like to do best: Celebrate a victory at the expense of the rest of the world.
10 November 2024
World teeters on brink as Trump and cronies prepare to flood the zone with shit
Are you OK? It seems an important question as the unhinged and unrestrained president Donald Trump is swept back into power and the world contemplates the implications for the climate, for civil discourse, for women, for minorities, for society as a whole, and for our children and their children.
24 September 2024
China solar giant Trina seeks approval for biggest battery project in Australia
The Chinese-based solar giant Trina Solar has submitted plans to build what would be the biggest battery storage facility in Australia, at Kemerton in an industrial zone south of Perth.
1 September 2024
Big battery market charges beyond expectations, now the grid just needs more wind and solar
The big battery storage market continues to charge ahead beyond expectations, buoyed by the doubling of planned capacity at what is already Queensland’s biggest battery, and a host of new projects that have taken the sector to levels and dimensions not contemplated even 12 months ago.
24 July 2024
Five things we learned this week from Ted’s Talk and people who actually know stuff
The Ted Talk: Not reading the room? Chutzpah? Or maybe the Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien was simply unaware that he wasn’t speaking to the local town hall meeting, Sky after Dark or the Institute of Public Affairs.
2 April 2024
A town like Alice. How a complex, isolated solar grid could provide blueprint for rest of Australia
Alice Springs is near the very centre of Australia: An iconic town made famous by its isolation, people, and multiple books and movies, and which now finds itself at the forefront of how to transition large isolated grids from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
24 March 2024
South Australia’s world-leading renewable transition is attracting flood of new industry
Will a grid based around wind and solar kill manufacturing and industry? It’s what the naysayers – the Coalition and conservative agitators – want you to believe, but the experience in South Australia, which leads the world in the uptake of wind and solar, proves the opposite.
11 August 2023
AEMO slams Murdoch media campaign that claims renewables are not low cost
The Australian Energy Market Operator has made a rare foray into the mainstream media debate around the green energy transition, saying claims that its cost assessment of renewables does not include transmission and storage are “wrong.”
28 July 2023
Bowen: “It’s too late to avoid the climate emergency”
Australia’s climate and energy minister Chris Bowen says the extreme weather events of recent years, and the heatwaves sweeping the globe in this northern summer, show that the world has already failed to prevent a climate emergency.
26 February 2021
Morrison’s media code could be catastrophic for climate and energy news
Morrison's government could hardly have wished for a better outcome. The core of their supplicant media is to receive millions to continue their cheering from the sidelines, while independent voices such as RenewEconomy risk being squeezed by these secret deals. Yet big media companies and the competition regulator claim this to be some sort of victory for media diversity and the democratic process.
15 January 2020
Coal! Coal! Coal! for Australia, as bushfires and denial greet Olympic year (Reneweconomy 13.1.2020)
So much for the great Australian summer holidays. The apocalyptic vision and impacts of the brutal bushfires that have devastated large swathes of the country, and covered much of the rest in choking smoke, is accompanied by an unwanted record.
15 November 2019
South Australia’s stunning renewable energy transition, and what comes next (Renew Economy 5-11-19)
The eyes of the energy world are upon it, but the renewable energy transition in South Australia is probably one of the misunderstood, misreported and under-appreciated achievements of our time.
4 April 2019
Coalition signs off with a budget tailored for climate denial (RenewEconomy, 2.4.19)
The federal Coalition government has delivered its last budget before the May poll, and pretty much finished the way it started in government nearly six years ago: Long term climate and clean energy policies and technologies are ignored, and the focus is on trinkets and handouts.
27 February 2019
Morrison puts lipstick on Tony Abbott’s pig of a climate policy (Renew Economy).
Prime minister Scott Morrison has finally unveiled his climate policy and it is clearly designed to do two things: Placate the core rump of climate deniers and ideologues within his own party and the conservative media, and try to fool enough others that the Coalition is doing something to address a problem it barely admits exists, or worth doing anything about.
22 December 2018
Coalition energy and climate policies hit rock bottom at year's end
The federal Coalition government has achieved what most would have assumed impossible at the start of 2018: its position on climate and energy policies has worsened and shifted even further to the right.
16 November 2018
Lazard hails “inflection point” as wind, solar costs beat new and old fossils (Renew Economy)
Lazard hails “inflection point” as wind, solar costs beat new and old fossils.
10 October 2018
Coalition’s breathtakingly stupid response to IPCC climate report (RenewEconomy, 09.10.18)
It wasn’t too hard to predict what the Coalition government’s responses to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report would be – you just needed to know where they would be making them.
5 September 2018
Business gives up on Coalition, turns to Labor and states on energy, climate
Here’s the most damning assessment of the Coalition’s energy and climate policy, such as it remains after the crucifixion of Malcolm Turnbull and the elevation of conservatives Scott Morrison as prime minister and Angus Taylor as energy minister:
31 August 2018
Taylor confirms no interest in emissions, but says he’s no climate skeptic (RenewEconomy, 30.08.18)
New energy minister Angus Taylor has confirmed what was largely expected: that he has no interest in emission reductions under the remit handed him by prime minister Scott Morrison, and that his primary focus will be on reducing prices for consumers.
28 August 2018
Morrison names leading anti-wind campaigner as energy minister
New prime minister Scott Morrison has ended the experiment of combining the energy and environment portfolios, and appointed one of the country’s most prominent anti-wind campaigners as energy minister, and a former mining industry lawyer as environment minister.
25 August 2018
GILES PARKINSON & SOPHIE VORRATH “Scoal-Mo” as PM. What does that mean for climate and energy policy? (RenewEconomy, 24.08.18)
It says something about the state of Australia’s politics that the new prime minister, the man who brandished a lump of coal in parliament, is considered a moderate, at least in comparison to the forces he beat to the job.
22 August 2018
Turnbull survives as puppet of right wing, as Australia burns (RenewEconomy, 21.08.18)
At least in 2009, Turnbull left his job as then Opposition leader with his dignity intact.But not now.
2 August 2018
NEG in the air as Nationals go for coal, and Barnaby goes nuts
The timetable for a final decision on the controversial National Energy Guarantee has been thrown into the air amid a renewed push for coal generation by the National Party following the Coalition’s “super-Saturday” by-election defeats last weekend.
19 July 2018
Bad news for coal-huggers: Renewables at 50% by 2030
“King coal to rule for 20 more years” screamed the front page lead headline in The Australian, following the release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 20-year blueprint for the future of energy, known as its Integrated System Plan.
11 May 2018
Turnbull's election budget dumps on climate and renewables
What is widely regarded as the last budget to be delivered by the Turnbull government before the next federal election ceded no ground on climate policy, insisting that it’s much criticised emissions reduction targets would remain unchanged.
16 March 2018
South Australia's renewable energy future hangs by a thread
It’s an election that is impossible to call. And too important to ignore.
23 February 2018
Weatherill: Why state election will be a referendum on renewables
South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill might not be able to see much daylight between his Labor Party and the rival Liberals and SA Best, but he’s certainly making sure there is a big difference between his energy policy and those of the Opposition and the upstart party of Nick Xenophon.
22 February 2018
SA Labor shoots for 75% renewables, 25% storage target
South Australia’s Labor government has doubled down on its commitment to renewable energy, promising to increase the share of renewables to 75 per cent by 2025 if re-elected at next month’s state poll, and announcing plans to install 750MW of “renewable storage” to go with it.
16 February 2018
Battery storage leaves fossil fuels and regulators in state of intertia
The brain cells are working overtime at the headquarters of network owners, grid operators, generators, and regulators. Australia’s electricity grid is about to make the leap from analogue to digital, and everyone is scrambling to keep up.
2 February 2018
Shorten hails cheap wind and solar, but will he stop Adani
You would have missed it, if you were relying on mainstream media, but Labor leader Bill Shorten did actually mention clean energy and climate policies in his scene-setting speech for 2018, which may well turn out to be an election year.
15 December 2017
GILES PARKINSON. Turnbull blows trumpet for right wing idiocy on energy
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has chosen to close the year in much the same way as he started it on climate and energy policy: awaiting yet another review, and parroting the ever more absurd claims of the fossil fuel lobby and the right wing of his Coalition government on energy.
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