“At 6pm [on January 27], Victoria’s 17-year-old record for peak demand was broken by nearly 200 MW. But for us at AEMO, neither the new demand record nor the sweaty night were the most remarkable part of that day.

“It was the window into the future provided by households with new home batteries.”

Westerman says that despite most of these batteries operating in “passive mode” – that is, not orchestrated as part of a virtual power plant – at the time of peak demand, households with solar and storage were each drawing 1.4 kilowatts (kW) less that homes with solar only.

“That’s an 80% reduction during a record demand, and the impact of those batteries extends beyond the peaks,” he told the conference.

“In fact, on average, across the first quarter, households with batteries reduced the amount of energy they drew from the grid during the evening peak by nearly a kilowatt.” That suggests total peak reduction of nearly 600 MW from 600,000 households.

“That demand reduction the household directly through lower energy bills, and it benefits the wider energy system by reducing demand overall. That’s a win for consumers everywhere,” Westerman said.

Our investigation into a level crossing collision between a passenger train and truck south of Brisbane highlights that when a vehicle becomes immobilised on a level crossing it should immediately be treated as an emergency situation.

https://archive.md/k1ei2

Even as the poll-topping Pauline Hanson graced the National Press Club (finally), her "north stars" in the Anglosphere seemed to be topping out, revealing themselves as incapable of constructive thought and not even that popular.

Buoyed by good polls, Hanson cumbersomely attacked the very battler base required for securing majority power. Wage and salary earners were insulted as lazy but protected by employment law.

Women were told they did not need paid maternity leave nor was childcare worthy of higher wages and investment. Access to abortion would be restricted.

Migrants and their descendants who make up more than half the population, would be asked to pipe down. Their rich cultural offerings would be forsaken in creating Hanson's new monoculture, a joyless cultural soviet defined as "one nation under one flag".

Lauded by (too) many commentators as effective and as a test safely navigated, Hanson's long indignant address was heaved with own goals.

It will more likely mark the moment that her party's broadening appeal splintered - even allowing for the next couple of polls. That may read as a contradiction, but the aim in democratic politics isn't to win opinion surveys, it is to win general elections.

When the major parties and unions package up her loose anti-women, anti-migrant, anti-worker quotes, it will become clear that One Nation is not the fast vehicle for a new people power it pretends to be. Great for billionaire plane-providing donors, sure, but the rest?

It was the same week when Donald Trump's epic bravado against Iran ("a-whole-civilisation-will-die-tonight") wheezed into a humiliating American whimper.

Trump's only bauble is a return to the open sea lane that prevailed before he pounced. Yet even this is unenforceable.

The much-despised mullahs remain powerful and will now discuss with other Persian Gulf frontages what conditions might be applied to freighters transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Even before then, Trump's vague 60-day MOU could be shattered by a furious Benjamin Netanyahu eager to spill more blood in Lebanon. US-Iran negotiations have already faltered.

Too harsh? Tell it to the White House. Trump condemned the IDF's rubble-making strategy in Lebanon (as perfected in Gaza) declaring: "You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from Hezbollah".

That exasperation came, fittingly, as the US went to water over Iran in Evian, France. Netanyahu's perennial war-footing has finally succeeded in fracturing American resolve with Vice-President JD Vance fuming to the DC press pack: "Donald J Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. If I were in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."

Then came this remark via a NYT podcast: "You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have". Crikey.

In Britain, where race-baiting demagoguery fanned incendiary riots in recent weeks, things on the divisive right have also unravelled. Nigel Farage's Reform UK was primed to take a Manchester seat in a byelection.

It should have been a lock. Aggregated national polls have support for Keir Starmer's Labour at a dismal 19 per cent. For Farage, the down-trodden seat of Makerfield was natural Reform territory, registering his sixth biggest swing nationally there in the 2024 general election - i.e. when Starmer was actually popular.

Instead, Andy Burnham easily retained it for Labour taking 55 per cent of the vote - more than the other 13 candidates, including Reform, combined.

The takeout for Starmer personally, though, is not good. Even before the byelection, more than 100 Labour MPs had called on him to resign. In winning big, Burnham overcame Starmer's deep unpopularity by connecting with the very Britons left behind by successive Tory and Labour governments. The conclusion is unavoidable: Burnham is well liked and can beat Farage.

Starmer, is widely disliked and simply cannot. A challenge is imminent.

More broadly, the result suggests that it is possible at least, for a party in government to defeat a populist outsider insurgency. Although it must be acknowledged, Burnham, too, ran as a kind of anti-Starmer, anti-Westminster outsider.

A final few respectful words on the unrecognised danger of Hanson's openly declared bans on certain media organisations, and individual reporters attending her press conferences.

This is a serious attack on a free press.

Her objective here, as with Trump, is to secure obedience, compliance, control. Popular or not, professional media play an essential role in applying scrutiny and accountability.

Reporters are not there to be compliant, or ordained.

Journalists and their employers who escape her bans and proceed as if all is right, are not lucky. Rather, they are complicit in validating dangerous authoritarian behaviour. Such techniques as Hanson is trialling are un-Australian and undemocratic. Journalists should have said so clearly and in real time.

Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute.

In brief: The UK Ministry of Defence is accelerating “Project Brakestop,” an initiative to produce cost-effective, long-range missiles for Ukraine without relying on US parts or navigation data. Developed by MBDA, MGI Engineering, and Rotron Aerospace, the weapons are designed to carry a 225-kilogram warhead over 500 kilometers and cost approximately £400,000 per unit.

Italy’s Meloni fires back after Trump says she ‘begged’ him for a photo

https://www.politico.eu/article/italys-giorgia-meloni-fires-back-after-donald-trump-says-she-begged-him-for-a-photo/

"Well, some things deserve an immediate response. Donald Trump's statements are completely fabricated; I am frankly appalled. I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way with his allies—it’s not the first time it’s happened. All I can say is that it’s disappointing he doesn’t show the same determination towards the enemies of the West, the enemies of the United States, with leaders towards whom he is much more accommodating. But one thing I and Italy must remember: we never beg."

Also if any Italian speakers watching this: do the English subtitles line up fairly well with the Italian speech timing wise? I killed like 3 forests trying to get this right as the sound of what she was saying didn't line up with the subtitles

I suspect this is just the beginning for Moscow, they're about to feel what it's been like for the people of Ukraine for the last 4 years