Image by AngMoKio
By Jo Nova
The Daily Telegraph has discovered a major Net Zero project has signed up several Chinese companies. The huge battery and solar scheme in Bundey South Australia has been given the red carpet treatment by the Albanese government. It will be fast tracked as a priority by the government and cash will rain down from the “Capital Investment Scheme (CIS)” .
The group running the project is Ganaspi Energy. Supposedly it is based in Sydney, except that when the Daily Telegraph visited the office there, it was empty. No one was responding to emails or text messages, and the phone number didn’t connect. If this company was a ghost corporation, or a front for Chinese interests, they don’t seem to be trying hard to disguise it?
Ganaspi Energy has brought in several Chinese firms, and held a party with some them in Suzhou to celebrate. Supposedly, the Bundey BESS and Solar project will be the largest battery storage power station in the Southern Hemisphere.
Taxpayers are underwriting the project for the first 15 years.
Revealed: Net Zero project’s major links to Chinese business
By James Willis, The Daily Telegraph
Two of the suppliers are the China Energy Engineering Corporation, and CEEC Energy Storage Technology, both of which are owned by the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed, the CEEC is listed as a stakeholder of the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative).
The danger with battery projects is that unlike coal or gas plants, they are digitally connected, full of sensors, and often linked by remote management systems. If a state-owned Chinese firm or its subsidiaries help design or integrate these systems, Beijing potentially gains a lot of real time data:
- Telemetry data (power flows, grid vulnerabilities, frequency control info).
- Firmware access (e.g., backdoors in battery-management systems).
- A future sabotage vector, should relations deteriorate.
Access like this to the national grid not only gives China oversight over our energy flows, it gives it a foot in the door, and a precedent to bring in other Chinese projects. How can we object when there is already a large piece of critical infrastructure approved. If and when the Australian government ever wanted to criticize the CCP, it would only take a small nudge from a friend of the CCP to silence the PM. Nice grid you have there…
We know China wants to bring Australia into the Belt and Road program. In 2021 Dan Andrews tried to sign up Victoria to the Belt and Road program but it was rejected by the Coalition government as “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy…”
This is a win for China on so many levels
Keeping the renewable dream alive in Australia is good for China. It helps sabotage our reliable coal power. A few more Australian factories will close and move to Shanghai. We’ll buy even more Chinese made windmills, more EVs, battery packs and solar panels. It embeds Chinese standards in electronics and battery control software, a form of “technological colonisation” that increases the odds and advantages of future Chinese projects.
Indeed, we can almost imagine a Chinese representative siding up to Anthony Albanese in his darkest Net Zero days, and generously offering to help rescue him from the mess it has become. Who knows? Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen might have been very amenable to offers of rapid big batteries, with the guarantee it will profit from taxpayer schemes, as long as they look the other way on the foreign investment risk.
When asked, Mr Bowen told The Daily Telegraph that “Labor was delivering “the maximum value to the taxpayer.” But all the details are hidden from the public because they are ‘commercial in confidence’. It could just as easily mean the Albanese government sold our national security for a sweet deal to rescue their own reputations. How would we know this wasn’t the case?
The Opposition has fittingly demanded there be an inquiry into the $2.6 billion dollar project. However government sources told the Daily Telegraph that Ganaspi is an Australian owned company and usually the sub-contracting arrangements of Australian companies don’t trigger investigations under the foreign investment framework.
A $2.6 billion dollar foot in the door…
Just more BS and con tricks from the Labor govt and China now has both feet in the door and all funded by the long suffering Aussie taxpayer.
I thought the Andrew’s con trick would’ve seen a more cautious approach by Labor in the future, but the Albo and Bowen loonies etc are now full steam ahead with their mates in the CCP.
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Energy Australia needs a BIG battery on this line to maintain the voltage stability of the SA wind grid. The solar panels will be used to fill the battery.
The problem is the cost. Being connected to the grid in country NSW and SA will become unaffordable. There are simply too few customers.
No-one is talking about frequency stability.
I expect a Liberal country senator will support this. They may be lining up a board job with Energy Australia. A quicxk look at the government register of paid trips to Honkers may enlighten us. They would need to be a lawyer and have a MBA etc. When I grew up In Adelaide this was called something not good and their family would be ostracized for a generation. Now they are going to get a government award. Is this behaviour sponsored by Sussan Ley?
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Lol.
What Australian ‘Pollie’ has any idea of Science or how an Electricity Grid should work or used to work in the ‘Good Old Days’?
Answer? None that I know of.
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JR, Senator Malcolm Roberts is very well up on these issues and he has a science degree. There are others as well but they are not listened to by the gov either.
John
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Agreed. That’s the really scary bit. You either have solar panels, a big external battery connected to the panels and an EV (total cost about $80k) – or you live in a cave.
The “grid” as we currently know it will not exist. The Spanish experience every day.
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And who owns Energy Australia? Why, it’s C.L.P. – China Light and Power – surprise, surprise.
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I would be interested to know how a battery in SA, presumably connected to the”National” grid, can in theory only backup SA power. Perhaps somebody with a better understanding of grids can explain this.
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Your question actually brings attention to why a network with a single HV, base load spine transformed with HV ribs without base load is NEVER going to be reliable.
Batteries will make the grid more unreliable.
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And with our Com-opted media NOT banging on the door, who will know? Worse, with our Com-opted “opposition” who will raise this in any parliament worth it’s salt?
Brush up on your Mandarin folks.
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“Com-opted”
I see what you did there.
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Similar situation in a local shire. A 100% Australian owned company was attempting to build a wind factory further along a range that already had a 30 – 35% efficient wind factory.
Local “information” sessions saw everyone involved promised anything and everything to minimise objections, you know the spiel, everyone whose properties impacted will receive compensation and annual renumeration etc etc. Turns out the 100% Australian company was a shell, owned by a French company . Hmmmm. My question, Once the factory was up and running what would stop it being sold, the new “owners” would have no obligation to honour any contracts entered into by the original company and all those rivers of gold promised to affected land owners would dry up faster than a bedsheet in a gale.
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Usually when a company is purchased the buyer must honour existing contracts, unless those contracts included a clause/condition that let a future buyer escape.
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Once again, the Australian Feral LayBore Guv’ment has shown itself to be transparent.
So transparent that we can see right through them.
Albo’s transparency isn’t your transparency.
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It would be nice if the Coalition was a bit more strident.
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Understatement of the year.
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Some of them are heavily invested in renewables.
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You bet they are – and to add to that, you omitted to include all the negative gearing some of our ‘caring’ pollies are into. Its called a ticket to ride to riches at yours and my expense.
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I had a look at the Ganaspi Energy web site – ganaspienergygroup.com.au/about/# – although it barely qualifies as more than a placeholder. It has some words about the goodness of renewables & firming, but when following the “technology”, “develop” & “explore” links, they led to blank pages. There is no information about shareholders, offices, people or Ts & Cs. The “contact” link – https://genaspienergygroup.com.au/contact – can’t be found.
genaspienergy.com.au is used for contact emails but the domain is for sale at GoDaddy.
There’s another page for the project – https://bundeybessandsolar.com.au – with more blather & on that page is a contact email – headoffice@genaspienergy,com.au – which of course goes no where since the domain is not used & the comma (before the “com.au”) would invalidate the email address in any case.
I’ll see if I can find shareholders….
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So, what Due Diligence did the Australian Feral Guv’ment do before signing off on this ‘Deal’ and providing Australian Taxpayer money (and/or Debt) to finance it?
A Senate Enquiry quick smart please.
Well done the Daily Telegraph once again. I assume it was the Sydney Daily Telegraph.
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My first thought as well. We love to criticise Chris Bowen and all the politicians etc, but there’s a whole battalion of civil servants who facilitated this project. Both at federal and state level. Didn’t do their due diligence and just supposedly were very happy to hand over our taxpayer funds. Not their money!! I was always amazed how quickly Snowy Hydro 2 was approved. No sooner had it been announced that Malcolm Turnbull and all the LNP linos got dressed up in their high vis and hard helmets and were doing ceremonies on site. If a major mining company had eg. announced a mine in the same area, they would still be bogged down in green tape. Someone quipped about civil servants – they’re not civil and they’re not servants.
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The fact that they are known as ‘mandarins’, probably tells you more than you want to know.
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A bit like HR. Neither humane nor resourceful.
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Due diligence? I’d say obviously none.
I would hope their ABc 4 corners will be doing an expose on this in the next couple of weeks.
I won’t hold my breath though.
Question for the legal minds here. I would think that this contract would be null and void since this appears to be a shell company. Thoughts?
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Most public servants wouldn’t know where to begin to do due diligence. See Australia’s defence acquisitions.
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I’m totally confident that effective due diligence was done on the governments use of cloud services.
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We’ve got China stealing our loot from the north and Uncle Sam ripping us off from the east with Aukus and possibly our super funds in the great rare earths swindle, times they are not so good.
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Rare earths swindle using predatory pricing.
‘China mines and refines most of the world’s critical minerals and it has deliberately suppressed prices through market manipulation to prevent other potential suppliers, such as Australia, from joining the party. This is hardly a new phenomenon. What’s changed is Trump’s tariffs, with China now threatening to limit its exports.’ (Guardian)
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It’s not just suppression of prices by China, but also the fact that there are two ways to refine rare earths.
One is incredibly dirty, produces incredibly toxic waste that binds very easily with organic materials and doesn’t break down that China is simply dumping into chemical lakes that are leaching into the groundwater, then into rivers, then into the sea, but is very cheap.
The other is much more expensive and doesn’t produce the volume of toxic waste, but also treats it to break it down. That’s the only type that is allowed outside China, and maybe Russia.
Vietnam has quite a lot of rare earths, quite handy to China as they are in the country’s northwest. They won’t sell them to China because of the way the Chinese process and refine them.
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From Sun Tzu
“To Subdue an enemy without fighting is the greatest of skills”
“All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.”
The Chinese are still reading The Art of War. Albo has never heard of it
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These days they call it soft power.
“A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it. In this sense, it is also important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics, and not only to force them to change by threatening military force or economic sanctions. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes that you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them.” (Joseph Nye)
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Which is about the life of the system and then the owners just wall away.
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There needs to be a thorough investigation into the financial involvement in such schemes of Australian politicians past and present who are regular visitors to China, often with no apparent objective in mind and with media excluded.
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With all these “wonderful” ruinables in South Australia, when can they cut the electrical umbilical cord from the eastern states?
And how many huge diesel generators will they need to install to prevent embarrassing blackouts during COP31, assuming Albo will pay enough tribute to Turkey to encourage their withdrawal from wanting to host it themselves?
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They are getting a new connection chord that will nudge above $5bn by completion so NSW can enjoy the low cost electricity from South Australia as Victoria has been doing for 15 years now.
So NSW spending $5bn for South Australia export their incredibly expensive electricity.
Rooftop owners in NSW can do one positive thing to reduce the high price of grid energy by making their own.
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By the time they’ve paid for the $5b interconnector and the $2.6b battery, NSW could have built their own brand new advanced coal plant and have 70 years of actual cheap electricity.
And the cost of this $2.6b battery includes selling out the nation to be a bit more of a vassal state to China.
The price includes our lifestyle, our freedom to speak. If the CCP want Albanese to bring in Digital ID, censor skeptics, or empower Big Pharma experiments to demoralize and weaken the citizens, this deal just made that easier. Albanese needs these batteries to be built quickly, so if he doesn’t jump high enough when the CCP says jump, they might just go slow to motivate him. Like a puppet on a string.
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The Genaspi Energy website:
https://bundeybessandsolar.com.au/
Has a mobile phone number listed as its contact.
How many corporations with $2.6 billion projects don’t even have a landline phone number, and as pointed out, have an empty office and don’t return calls, texts or emails?
In any other context but “green”, this would be regarded as extremely suspicious.
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Just get a copy of the original Guv’ment Agreement and look to see who signed it – From both sides that is. Then grill them…………
Senate Enquiry and an Audit by the Feral Guv’ment Auditor General please.
Never going to happen is it.
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900MWsolar/3900MWh battery is already a stranded asset.
South Australians cannot afford the grid power art 52c/kWh so are making their own. It is pointless adding more generation into the wholesale market when the volume is in rapid decline.
South Australia would be better off installing solar and battery on every rental property for free than wasting money on grid assets that will have no demand,and to serve..
A third off all utility scale solar potential was economically curtailed this week. At 9am today, grind solar is already being curtailed across the NEM.
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At 9am today, grid solar is already being curtailed across the NEM.
And summer has just started…….
Though that is hardly noticeable+ in SW WA
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October is probably past the highest curtailment in Queensland because air-conditioners start being used through the day.
Victoria probably peak in excess solar in late November. SA similar.
Over a year, Queensland rooftop solar is already outpacing grid scale wind and solar combined.
I have doubts the NEM grid will ever again be competitive with rooftop solar and batteries.
Anyone wanting to set up an energy intensive business in Australia needs their own coal mine free of royalties and export pricing. Plenty in Victoria.
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Have you noticed when politicians and other members of the anti-energy lobby often refer to battery capacity in MW not MWh? Or they don’t understand that a battery is defined by both storage capacity and power rating?
Similiarly when they confuse “carbon” with “carbon dioxide”.
They have no clue and yet they are making major engineering decisions for which they are not qualified.
So is Bowen talking about storage capacity or maximum power rating?
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From my post yesterday –
“Johnny Rotten
October 24, 2025 at 8:28 am · Reply
All Energy Systems are governed by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Australian Electricity Grid is no different.
Australian Laybore’s Ideology clashes with these Laws and their ‘Nut Zero’ push with the Ruinables and Batteries will not work.”
And for how many days will this Battery System work to provide electricity as a back up?
This is almost like “Assault and Battery”.
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How many politicians or other members of the anti-energy lobby have even heard of the term “thermodynamics”?
And yet they are making major engineering decisions.
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“How many politicians or other members of the anti-energy lobby have even heard of the term “thermodynamics”? ”
The type of people who are attracted to politics are not ‘technical’ types.
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Agreed. So why are they making engineering decisions?
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More to the point is why their myriad advisers do not tell the minister the hard facts. If they do and are ignored that is a crime. If they do not then they are failing in their jobs and should be sacked.
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They aren’t. They are making political decisions.
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In 1959 the British physicist and novelist C.P. Snow created a storm with a lecture at Cambridge on “the Two Cultures” (the arts and the sciences) which was later published in book form. He used the Second Law of Thermodynamics as an example of how many apparently highly educated people are completely ignorant of fundamental scientific concepts.
“A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare.”
Nine years ago the Sydney Review of Books published an article about the controversy that Snow started.
Two Cultures (Again): Revisiting Leavis and Snow
https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/two-cultures-again-revisiting-leavis-and-snow
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What’s Chinese for “loan shark”? Or is it like the Sopranos where that hapless gambler, the Terminator from T2, lost his shop and marriage because he owed the Mafia (even after Tony Soprano warned him)?
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glencore must be jealous
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Glencore is sitting pretty.
‘Australian taxpayers will fund a multi-million-dollar rescue package for mining giant Glencore to keep copper processing facilities operational in Queensland until the end of 2028.
‘Glencore has accepted $600 million in financial bridging support for its Mount Isa Copper Smelter, and adjoining Townsville Refinery, from the state and federal governments.’ (ABC)
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One common fact . . . . The use of the commons cheque book . . . One in, all in . .
Watch out . . There’s a Bolshevik about . .
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Zoe Hilton of the CIS gives a good summary of the disastrous, toxic, unreliable W & S disasters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiv9hcLYjWo
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The Importance of Storage.
===========================
Do not underestimate the innovation of the pot, the kettle and the basket. Early hunter gatherers before these innovations were necessarily reliant on what they killed and gathered on a specific day. Maybe some left over for a second day, if rats, mice, crows, hyenas,and lions weren’t kept away, but that was it! Finding food was a daily survival task!
Similarly modern civilisation is reliant on energy day to day and that means storage.
What good the intermittent windmill when the wind doesn’t blow? What good the solar panel when the sun doesn’t shine, night-time and dull days, long winter months when you need energy to stop you freezing to death? If only these unreliable energy sources had their own equivalents of the pot, the kettle or the basket. if only pigs could fly. But they don’t.
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But Albanese Labor are business minded entrepreneurs?
sarc.
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The only business that they are good at is shonky business. The other one is how to run a business into the ground. That’s your business.
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Blackout Bowen, this video tells you everything. Watch, listen and learn if you can you Moron –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiv9hcLYjWo
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FWIW
“The Green Mirage: The Hidden Costs Behind The Electric Car Hype”
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/green-mirage-hidden-costs-behind-electric-car-hype
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This is widespread. Earlier this year, I attended an Engineers Australia CPD event at an Energy Qld site. We were shown a large battery system that was being configured prior to it being sent to Bedourie. Apparently another like it had gone to Windorah (North and East of Birdsville, respectively). The manufacturer is CATL, iirc, a Chinese company. We were told the manufacturer retains remote access for the life of the system for warranty and support purposes (10 years).
I have no idea how many more of these are out there, or are planned.
The Wikipedia page for CATL is not flattering…
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This all sounds suspiciously like the huge solar and BESS the are pushing in Bundy (Bundaberg) Queensland.
The term “BESS in Gin Gin solar” likely refers to the Bundaberg Regional Battery, a proposed utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) being developed by Iberdrola Australia near Gin Gin and the Monduran BESS, a separate project by Eku Energy also in the Bundaberg region. The Bundaberg Regional Battery project is intended to support the grid by storing excess solar power and releasing it during peak demand. It will connect to the local substation at Gin Gin and will have an independent point of connection at the Gin Gin substation
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I checked with Grok. It’s not a good equation for Australia:
“The $2.6 billion Bundey Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Solar project in South Australia is primarily funded by Australian taxpayers through the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS). Under this scheme, the government provides financial support and underwrites operating costs for up to 15 years to ensure revenue stability for the project, which was selected as the largest initiative in CIS Tender 4 (300 MW/1,200 MWh in Stage 1, scaling to 1,200 MW/4,800 MWh overall). There is no evidence of direct Chinese funding or loans; instead, the project relies on Australian public investment to de-risk private development.
China does not pay for the project. Genaspi Energy Group, the Australian-owned developer, has secured partnerships with Chinese state-owned firms (China Energy Engineering Corporation and CEEC Energy Storage Technology) for technical support and equipment procurement, but these are subcontracting arrangements, not funding commitments.
Australia bears both the financial and security risks:
Financial Risks: The Australian government and taxpayers underwrite the project’s viability, guaranteeing payments regardless of performance issues. This includes potential losses if the developer (Genaspi) underdelivers, as highlighted by concerns over Genaspi’s operational transparency (e.g., reports of an empty Sydney office and unresponsive contacts).
Security Risks: National security experts have flagged vulnerabilities from Chinese involvement, including potential access to grid telemetry data, firmware backdoors in battery systems, and sabotage risks during geopolitical tensions. The project’s strategic role in Australia’s energy grid amplifies these concerns, with calls for a Senate inquiry to assess foreign interference.
China takes minimal risks, limited to commercial exposure from equipment supply contracts. Genaspi retains full control over development, construction, and operations, with Chinese partners providing only supportive roles.” [my bold]
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