Battery Boom Is Upending Australian Power Market Rules | Switched On

Australia is becoming a proving ground for the future of electricity markets. With renewables now supplying a large share of generation and batteries being deployed at unprecedented scale, the country is offering an early look at how power systems operate when storage becomes a central part of the grid. Yet batteries’ remarkable success in the country brings with it new challenges, as growing competition begins to erode the arbitrage opportunities that drove the sector’s early growth. So what happens when batteries move from a niche technology to a core part of the power system, and what can Australia’s experience teach the rest of the world? On today’s show, Kobad Bhavnagri is joined by joined by Sahaj Sood, an associate from BNEF’s Australian research team, to review findings from his notes “Australia Energy Storage Update 2026: Arbs and Flows” and “Batteries Supercharge Australia’s Solar and Wind Economics.” Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEFGO on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com (https://www.bnef.com/) Links to research notes from this episode: Australia Energy Storage Update 2026: Arbs and Flows - https://www.bnef.com/insights/39303 (https://www.bnef.com/insights/39303) Batteries Supercharge Australia’s Solar and Wind Economics - https://www.bnef.com/insights/39135 (https://www.bnef.com/insights/39135) See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. The future of energy, transport, sustainability and more, as told by BNEF analysts. Each week, Dana Perkins and Tom Rowlands-Rees sit down with BloombergNEF (BNEF) analysts to uncover the key findings and stories behind their latest research. Check out more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0O1zx-dJnH-YQw7APqnHLcm Watch video podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0MS0Tqk_zQl1LVVTdWuH2Di Visit us: https://www.bloomberg.com/podcasts #energy #sustainability #podcast