April
The five seconds that plunged Spain into darkness
A key point of concern is the role that renewable power played in the outage with Spain a leader in rolling out wind and solar generation.
Mystery blackout forces Spain, Portugal to cope with life off the grid
An unprecedented and massive blackout hit both nations overnight, cutting off everything from metro trains to ATMs for 50 million people.
January
Zenith Energy first round offers due; APA Group takes its leave
The Adam Watson-led APA is understood to be instead focusing – at this time – on organic opportunities within its existing business.
Alinta Energy taps investment banks as HK tycoon owner weighs options
Street Talk understands Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook has mandated investment banks UBS and RBC Capital Markets for advice ahead of a major renewables push.
November 2024
Energy efforts run into reality
The risk of power blackouts is real and rising this summer – along with the costs of frantically trying to avoid that happening,
October 2024
Broken Hill pushes for ‘tens of millions’ in compensation
Broken Hill mayor Tom Kennedy says Transgrid could be fined tens of millions of dollars if its emergency back-up systems are found to be flawed.
Hurricane-hit Florida reels from $148b damages bill
The US state has woken up to power outages, flooding and destruction, as Kamala Harris accused rival Donald Trump of trying to politicise the devastation.
February 2024
Businesses suffer as Victoria outage blame game erupts
Pramod Patel turfed more than $20,000 worth of stock after his Victorian grocery store lost power for four days, but the political blame game rages on.
June 2022
How the energy market broke and forced AEMO’s hand
The introduction of a price cap across Australia’s east coast wholesale electricity market was unprecedented, but it got worse before AEMO stepped in.
Nearly 25pc of coal capacity remains offline despite energy crunch
Nearly 25 per cent of Australia’s coal power capacity is offline despite surging wholesale electricity prices and tight domestic gas supplies.
March 2022
Japan scrambles to avoid Tokyo blackout after earthquake
Households and businesses have been asked to reduce power consumption as much as possible.
October 2021
Spectre of 1970s-style stagflation haunts global economy
Is stagflation – low growth and high prices – really something to start worrying about?
China orders top energy firms to secure supplies at any cost
Vice-Premier Han Zheng held an emergency meeting with officials from Beijing’s state-owned assets regulator and economic planning agency.
September 2021
Ausgrid workers escalate stoppages during pandemic
More than 1700 workers have endorsed ramping up strikes, threatening power disruptions as the east coast distributor enters its third month of industrial action.
June 2021
Man dies in floodwaters after wild storms lash Victoria
Hundreds of thousands of Victorians were stranded without power on Thursday and a man was killed as major storms lashed the state.
May 2021
Shortfall fears as fire rips through Queensland power station
A fire in a turbine hall at the coal-fired Callide power station caused an outage that affected some 400,000 customers and took multiple power units offline.
Blackouts threaten entire US West as summer heat arrives
If a heat wave strikes the region at once, the rolling outages that darkened parts of California last August will have been previews, not flukes.
February 2021
Macquarie’s natural perils windfall
Climate-driven spikes in revenue are likely to become more frequent at Macquarie Group as natural perils rise with global temperatures.
Senator Ted Cruz leaves Texas in state of disaster for trip to Cancun
Senator Ted Cruz is returning home after coming under harsh criticism for flying to the Mexican resort area of Cancun with his family while the state he represents deals with widespread power outages in the wake of a historic winter storm.
Biden declares emergency as freeze leaves millions without power
President Joe Biden declared an emergency as temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees forced energy companies to shut oil refineries in the largest US crude-producing state.