Essay by Eric Worrall
I doubt President Trump even heard of this company but his magic apparently somehow caused its collapse.
‘Contagion risk’: Zen Energy collapse sends shockwaves through renewables industry
Ryan Cropp and Primrose Riordan
Jul 17, 2026 – 5.00amThe collapse of the Ross Garnaut-backed renewable power retailer Zen Energy is set to have a contagion effect across Australia’s electricity sector, with several large clean energy developments left without a stable long-term buyer for their power.
The retailer tipped into administration earlier this month after its strategy of buying renewable energy from wind, solar and battery projects on long-term contracts and selling it to large electricity users came unstuck in the face of volatile power markets.
…
Tony Wood, a senior fellow at the Grattan Institute think tank, said Zen had been at the mercy of difficult market and regulatory conditions.
“When you’ve got complex structures with multiple parties and cross-party arrangements, you can easily get a contagion problem,” he said. “People take risks, and once its starts unravelling it’s really hard to stop. When the shit hits the fan a lot of people get shit on their face.”
…
In those documents, Zen blamed its troubles on wavering Australian government policy and a post-Trump world that was hostile to emissions reduction.
Read more: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/zen-collapse-poses-contagion-risk-for-renewables-projects-20260716-p60fxh
…
Other than blaming President Trump, the company blames a “poorly positioned” hedged portfolio.
Garnaut-backed Zen Energy sinks to $35m loss as volatile prices bite
…
The accounts, which have not been audited, were revealed in a note published by Income Asset Management, one of its debt investors. The note said the shortfall against budget was “largely driven by poor results in the June quarter, when the hedged portfolio was poorly positioned in relation to unusually low and volatile wind conditions and was adversely exposed at times to elevated spot prices”.
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/garnaut-backed-zen-energy-sinks-to-35m-loss-as-volatile-prices-bite-20240826-p5k5h8
Think of hedging a portfolio as like poll balancing. If a person wants to balance on a pole, they need to continuously adjust their position to prevent the pole from toppling over. A hedged portfolio, a portfolio stuffed full of unstable but potentially highly profitable financial instruments which want to topple over, also needs to be continuously adjusted to stay balanced. But this strategy of continuous balancing goes to hell if liquidity dries up. If the value of some of the unstable financial instruments collapses to such an extent nobody wants to buy them, then your portfolio can no longer be adjusted, and the pole topples over.
This collapse in liquidity, and subsequent failure to keep portfolios balanced, is what sent a bunch of banks to the wall during the Obama subprime mortgage crash, and it also appears to be what caused such massive losses at Zen energy.
Quite how President Trump figures in adverse conditions in Australia’s renewable energy market, I’d love to hear that explanation in detail. Australia’s energy and climate minister Chris Bowen continuously assures us renewables are the cheapest option, so those renewables companies which haven’t collapsed recently should be giving Australia some kind of competitive advantage. But maybe renewable operators don’t have to provide details when they invoke President Trump’s name, to explain disastrous losses of other people’s money.
Just think of the power Trump has.
Trump is Sooo Bad…
Just ask the Socialist Climate Cabal.
Orange man is everywhere. He Nutsifies them here and he Nutsifies them there and you know what happens to Nutsis.
The list of fiascos, financial and physical, emanating from the unreliable power generation boondoggle grows yearly.
I shudder to think about the wasted capital that could have been applied to improving the lives of people in underdeveloped countries over these past 40 years or so.
Agreed. What a waste of time and resources.
And think of all the clean/reliable/cheap, available 24/7/366, Nuclear Power (Plants) could have been built, would be being built and almost complete, there could be – everyone in Europe could have A/C too. We’d still need to have some coal power plants to keep the CO2 levels up and rising though – the world needs ever more food, you know.
Some clown was crowing the other day about 23% of homes in France having air-con.
That is 77% that don’t !!!!
It’s simply amazing how much blame one person can be accused of.
When they have no useful policies to help everyone this is the result.
TDS must be a required course in Climate Socialist Churches (colleges)
Yes, in fact, there’s now a TDS University. In Boston of course. 🙂
And when Trump leaves office in 2029 whom, oh whom, will they have left to blame? Oh, the shame of it.
Putin??
It will be blamed on the after-effects of Trump policies.
As I recall, Obama blamed Bush for inflation for years into his administration.
Biden blamed Trump1 for every problem he had.
Bad business models NEVER end well. Reselling renewables is one. Rooftop solar in Germany is becoming one. Subprime lending in 2008 was one.
I guess I don’t understand how that hegdefond was involved here..
There was an effort by the Australian government to subsidise regenerative energy production.
Is it just that these bankers decided to invest big money in a field they don’t understood in order to maximize their portion of subsidise? In which case they basically gambled their money on politics and lost. So, there is nothing to see here besides you should not complain if you gamble!?
“left without a stable long-term buyer”
…says something about the product.
“stable long-term buyer for their power”.
…says something about the product.
A total lack of stable long-term supply of electricity. ! 🙂
In my opinion the reason there has not been a previous DJT type person in the WH is because, during the Baby Boom education still occupied 95% of classroom time including History, Geography, Math, Science, Literature, and Civics, and without a Federal Dept of Education. Today we spend 95% of classroom time on indoctrination and 5% on telling students their parents don’t aways meet their needs. Your teachers know best.
The baby boomers began the slide into woke and invented the watermelon political contradiction which has eroded our culture in Australia ever since.
They began with the irrational terror of everything atomic, planted the dreamy superstitious nonsense about an age of Aquarius, pretended that almost all the world a few centuries ago was unspoiled and perfect Nature and humanity was a blight on the planet. Turn on, tune in, drop out! Sex, drugs and rock’n roll.
There Areva lot of. boomers, like me, on here and I don’t think many are woke. The gray haired 60’s hippies have always been idiots but they are not representative of boomers.
Some did and some did not. Many learned that the hippy ideology was total horse crap and abandoned it
If you can’t put people in a box, your worldview just implodes.
Of course, the total unreality of their proposals is never called to blame.
“and a post-Trump world that was hostile to emissions reduction.”
The sky is falling ! /s
Anyone who thinks that is a good idea to replace compact power generators that work at large scale and consistently 24/7/365 at ~90% productivity with technologies that are dilute, unreliable, widely distributed and working intermittently at a combined measured productivity ~18% or less, (actually down to ~15% across Europe in 2025) must be in error or malign.
The low productivity of Weather-Dependent “Renewables” means that their installations have to be about 5-6 times larger just to contribute the same amount power to the Grid. Even at scale they are still unreliable. If the installation costs of “Renewables” were equivalent, (they are in fact much higher when fully accounted including subsidies, Grid connections and other accounting fixes), their power costs more than conventional gas, coal and even nuclear technologies.
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-costs-of-weather-dependent-renewables-against-conventional-power-generation/
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/a-few-graphs-say-it-all-for-renewables/
They’re also short lived requiring full replacement 2-3 times over during the lifetime of Gas or Coal Generation and 3-4 times over the lifespan of Nuclear and always at ever increasing costs due to inflation.
In the case of Wind, 2-3 times in 60 years over Gas/Coal and 3-4 times over Nuclear
in the case of Solar, 3-4 times in 60 years over Gas/Coal and 4-5 times over Nuclear…plus with every major storm annually.
The IEA say there is
“Mounting evidence that solar panels, particularly in utility scale projects, are now being replaced in many instances after just 10 – 15 years of operation because the technology is outdated or performance has degraded”
That means replacement 4-6 times in comparison to gas and coal
IEA ‘World Energy Outlook 2025’ (Nov. 2025)
I had long thought that the problem with W&S was the cost dispatchability but the problem is in fact that to achieve anything approaching 50% of the market needs you need 3X to 5X installed capacity so when it sunny or windy the power is worthless far to much power and the market now knows this and the proportion of the output that is worthless grows a lot with each additional installation.
In Australia the last entitled coal generators make a fortune out of a small part of the market when W&S is absent so they keep their mouths shut but at some point it all falls to pieces, we are there.
Don’t worry. Free sodium batteries will be available in infinite quantities next month.
They will power everything. Free energy!
So, in addition to destroying democracy (interesting, since the US is a constitutional republic, not a democracy), causing flooding in several states, masterminding a global criminal conspiracy to undermine the Gulf Stream, one-handedly increasing oil & gas production while stifling oil & gas production, killing innocent illegal gimmiegrants who happen to be trying to run down Federal agents, all while suffering from severe dementia and failing health, Trump now is responsible for “unusually low and volatile wind conditions” in a country literally on the other side of the globe.
Trump Derangement Syndrome has spread further than I ever thought possible. Too bad Fauci no longer is around to promulgate mandates to wear masks designed to reduce the spread.
Turned on NPR while driving recently- and the first story was about how many innocent people have been MURDERED by ICE- and yes, they used the word murdered.
Socialists are like the Cheshire Cat. Words mean what I want them to mean.
Have you ever come across the phrase “wage slave”. It was very popular amongst the left wing a few decades back.
The claim that because you had to work in order to earn a paycheck, meant that you were a slave to corporations.
And of course the only solution to this was for the government to own all corporations and for government to pay everyone a living wage, whether they felt like working or not.
I was a witness to the bureaucracy in Wokeachusetts for 50 years- since their forestry agency had to approve of everything I did as a consulting forester. By and large they didn’t work very hard- some did almost nothing. A few were excellent. But they were all vastly overpaid based on the value of what they did. I suppose that’s what the left wants- and it won’t work. In fact, the state owns about a million acres of forest and they’re incapable of managing it at a profit.
You’re not taxing your citizens enough to cover this overall grift of unreliable and intermittent energy
They are just Ponzi schemes with an ecological gloss.
OUR PEOPLE’At ZEN, we are committed to fostering an environment where everyone can thrive. Promoting gender equality and social equity is fundamental to our social foundation. Our dynamic team values innovation, diversity, and work-life balance. Together, we are driving meaningful change for Australia’s sustainable future.’
Thus Spake Garnaut
Garnaut has been “advising” the Australian federal govt on climate issues for years. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke…
What utter drivel.
Trump has an incredible reach down under. You know it’s a “reach” when Zen Energy has to blame Trump for their demise.
And the Grattan Institute is a left-wing think tank, so anything Woods says should be ignored.
When did Trump move to Australia?
Wind, solar and storage are not inexpensive and they can’t support the grid. The only proper backup for them is fossil fuel, nuclear and hydro. They don’t work and they are a nuisance to the things that do work. Remove them from the grid.
“Wind and solar are free!” — Nick Stokes
Ross Garnaut has always been an environmentalist in name only.
He is in it to see how much money he can scrounge from the climate scam.
He was chairman of OK Tedi Mining Ltd when they were releasing their mine tailing into the rivers and ocean around Papua New Guinea.
They were dumping billions of tonnes of mine waste and metalliferous tailings, including cyanide and heavy metals into local rivers, severely impacted the ecology of the area.
Copper levels 800km from the mine in the river’s silt are 3000 times the safe level.
That river is going to be affected for 300 years or more. Not to mention the effect on local sea life and the local fisheries etc.
Garnaut is also a climate zealot of the highest order, responsible for putting forward “carbon tax” agendas for the Labor party.
A man not to be trusted, even with a bent spoon !
PS.. Garnaut ended up being banned from entering PNG
Is Ross Garnaut dogged by bad luck? Or is he simply endowed with the reverse Midas touch. Garnaut has been feted by the climate faithful ever since he authored the Stern Report knock-on Australian version, Garnaut Climate Change Review in 2008.
Sad endings seem to have followed his involvements with mining ventures in both New Guinea and Australia i.e. the BHP/OK Tedi Mining fiasco, likewise the ultimate sad demise of Lihir Gold and Ballarat Goldfieds.
So maybe Garnaut’s involvement with a failed renewables rent-seeking outfit is not all that surprising?
With luck Garnaut had a lot of his prior ill gotten gains invested in this mob and has lost the lot.
In the picture, does the man who has fallen down, front and center, have 3 arms?
Yep, hilarious 🙂
Yes, & the man behind him has 3 legs, & behind that one is a leg running without a man … more proof that you can trust AI‘s output to be accurate & trustworthy at all times !!!
From experience, only ever ask AI questions you know the answer to;
AI is just a very fast consensus engine.
Yeah. Tried to get Grok to make a Tiger I tank. never got close after many many prompt changes.
The Grattan Institute is the most subversive and powerful lobby group for advancing Australia toward a socialist republic and is embedded in every left wing section of most institutions in public life.
The attached chart shows the output of grid wind and solar on the Australian NEM for the last 30 days. It shows why wind is such a disaster because it has long cycles. The cycle can extend to 2 weeks without much wind in June and early July. The image comes from here.
Battery storage to firm wind is more expensive than for solar because solar rarely goes missing for more than 2 consecutive days.
Battery firmed wind in Australia is about 50% higher cost than battery firmed solar, which is about 25 times more expensive than lignite fired generation from the Latrobe Valley – lowest cost fuel source in the world.
People putting money into wind need ever increasing subsidies to get it to pay. Garnaut underestimated the level of subsidies required.
“Garnaut underestimated the level of subsidies required.”
He has had a big say in the implementation of the whole “wind and solar” scam.
A massive conflict of interest… and he has made a LOT of subsidy money from it.
“the hedged portfolio was poorly positioned in relation to unusually low and volatile wind conditions (in June)”
Strangely enough in early June 2025 we had 3 or 4 days where renewables, across the entire eastern half of the country, only produced 5% of their rated power. So it’s not as if weak winds in June are news.
If you can track it back far enough, go look at June and July 2015 for that part of the country.
A 21 day windflat with 100% overcast the entire time from Sydney all the way west to Griffith and south across the Victorian border.
Love that image of Trump smashing wind and solar facilities.
That’s what happens when Socialists/Marxists try to take over a system built by Capitalism.
We’ll count it as a win, even if it’s a ricochet shot off the heads of morons.
The collapse of the Ross Garnaut-backed renewable power retailer Zen Energy….
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. Another preachy climate fanatic who has been pushing the AGW doomwagon for decades. He is an economist and self-declared expert on climate but has zero understanding of science or engineering.