Spark Club brings entrepreneurs in the energy field together with a common objective, to build energy businesses. We draw on each others experience to support, learn and grow energy businesses. The podcasts are hosted by Grant McDowell and are recordings of our Fireside chat with leaders in the energy transition.
Spark Club Podcast – Ep75 – 3rd September 2026
Highlights – CEF’s field trip to China CATL, XCMG and China Hongqiao Group
Tim Buckley and Matt Pollard’s three highlights from their China trip in August:
CATL: RD&D: CATL invested an annualised RMB22.7bn (A$2.3bn) in R&D in 1HCY2026, up 13% y-o-y, with 22,000 staff deployed in RD&D, including 700 professors, with >60,000 patent applications and 17 new patents being borne daily! Extensive use of data, robots & analysis means CATL targets an error rate of 1 part per billion!
China Hongqiao Group is China’s #2 integrated aluminium producer, and they toured the largest single-site aluminium smelter in the world, 4x the capacity of Tomago in Newcastle. This smelter has reduced its annual emissions by 32Mtpa since 2020, with a lot more reductions underway.
XCMG: CEF joined Fortescue & XCMG at the largest commercial deployment of autonomous EV mining vehicles at China Huaneng Group’s 35Mtpa open cut opencut coal mine in Inner Mongolia. The highlight was the confirmation that having successfully deployed 100 autonomous EV mining trucks in May 2025, by Sept’2026 this will double to 200 and then treble to 300 trucks by Nov’2026, 18 months ahead of the original 3 year rollout. Follow the money – one of the largest coal mining utilities in the world sees this technology as commercial, even as BHP and Rio Tinto continue with their climate walk back.
Highlights – Asian Carbon markets progress
Matt and Tim attended a full day session in Beijing with 30 people from the greater Asian region to discuss China’s carbon market expansion, and the progress on carbon market developments from India to Thailand, Korea and Philippines.
A key point was made by China’s Assistant Director General of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment that climate markets are an integral part of China’s sustainable economic development.
The focus is on building momentum towards greater Asian regional cooperation in carbon market development, particularly in regional trade so as to extend and leverage the EU ETS and CBAM.
It was great to hear Minister Bowen last month talk about his push for a path to an Australian CBAM, particularly as it was followed by his Australian meeting late August 2026 with China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, for the 10th Australia-China Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Change.
Lowlights – The WA by-election last week
Not only did ONP win a strong 57% two-party share of the total vote and take the seat of Secret Harbour, but the WA ALP fielded Woodside’s ex lobbyist as their candidate, and Woodside was one of the largest donors to her election campaign. Yet more evidence of the state capture of the WA government by the fossil gas industry.
Main Story – My keynote presentation this week to the RE Construction Summit
This week Tim is presenting in Sydney at the Renewable Energy Construction Summit, see presentation is available via CEF’s website.
Main themes are:
#1 We are making strong progress on the journey to 82% RE and beyond, even if we are tracking 1-2 years behind Minister Chris Bowen’s ambitious 2030 target. The 12 month moving average for RE share hit a record high of 46.9% in August 2026. Rooftop solar installs are on track for an all time record high of 4GW in CY2026, up a third on the last 5 years’ average.
This is supported by the 2,000 home battery installs per day being delivered thanks to Minister Bowen’s massively successful program. And rooftop C&I is finally set to surge with Bowen’s latest incentive program, all leveraging the existing grid and thereby lowering average retail electricity prices for all. And while AEMO’s new ESOO flags a record 9.1GW of net new generation and storage capacity (utility and CER) was added in FYU2026, almost 3x that of the last five years, the reality is we need to see progress rise another 50% and then sustain that for the next decade.
The CER’s August 2026 report highlights that another cumulative 7.5GW of utility scale renewables capacity has reached FID but yet to be commissioned, with a record 32.2GW in the CER’s probable category. Progress is being made, but we must see this accelerate, and for this to happen, we must see project proposals that have won CIS leverage this and get to FID and into construction. The only way we get coal plant closures is by building replacement renewable generation capacity beyond what is needed to cover the ongoing growth in electrification, including EVs and data centres.
What’s coming up?
Later this week Tim is off to Adelaide for a German-Australia green iron and steel roundtable, followed by attending the Asia Hydrogen Summit, where Tim is moderating a panel on path to commercialisation and deployments
Next week TIm is off to Canberra with Prof. Liz Thurbon and Oliver Yates to meet with the Chinese Embassy to suggest ways for greater bilateral China-Australia collaboration, and meeting with Treasury again re the FTC reform
Then Tim will be going to the Gold Coast to see a potential battery assembly factory with eLumina, then talking at a community event on China’s energy transition hosted by Mara Bun with Annastacia Palaszczuk, Chair of the Advanced Materials & Battery Council, and like me, a massive fan of seeing first hand China’s energy system transformation and the opportunities for greater Australia-China collaboration.
The following week Tim will join a Canberra Parliament delegation (including Mick Liubinskas’ VC event on the 16th), then he’s speaking at an Ethinvest event in Melbourne on the evening of the 16th, then a Sydney Freight Electrification event on the 17th then talking at the Everything Electric Sydney event on 18th Sept.
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