Senior Writer
They are only starting to gain a foothold in the Australian market, but could batteries provide a near overnight solution to the energy woes that have hit South Australia and risk spreading east?
So much for axing the tax: a growing crisis in the electricity market has led to wholesale power prices more than doubling in a year, and rising to at least twice what they were under the controversial Labor-Greens carbon price.
After years of failed promises, Victoria is on the cusp of getting its first large-scale solar power stations.
Victoria and NSW have been warned they could follow South Australia in being hit by electricity blackouts in years ahead unless Canberra comes up with a bipartisan national plan to deal with energy and climate change.
Economists are divided on whether Australia must become a low-carbon intensity economy.
"Clean coal" plants that the Turnbull government has flagged could get clean energy subsidies are more expensive than solar, wind and gas-fired power and would lead to higher electricity price rises, analysts have warned.
State and federal energy ministers have agreed to steps promised to stop companies price gouging on electricity bills, but been blocked from going further by the NSW and Queensland governments.
The extreme weather conditions and 80,000 lightning strikes that thrust South Australia into darkness last week was extraordinary enough; the disingenuous debate it sparked about Australia's changing energy system has been something else again.
The Apple Isle is using a fleet of diesel gennies and cloud seeding to try and make it rain, but will this state run out of power?
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has hailed the first round of "direct action", saying it has delivered Australia's largest emissions cut ever. Is it a plan for the next 50 years? Or is the future a little more complicated?