Tech Billionaire Sees a Power Industry Ripe for Disruption

Tech Billionaire Sees a Power Industry Ripe for Disruption

International and Arab News

The power crisis of recent months has sent the prices of oil, coal and gas to multi-year record levels. It’s also given deep-pocketed energy transition advocates an opportunity that they haven’t had in years: to put their money where their mouths are.

That’s the thinking driving the A$7.9 billion ($5.7 billion) takeover offer for AGL Energy Ltd. by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and the family office of Mike Cannon-Brookes, billionaire co-founder of software company Atlassian Corp. The generator and power retailer accounts for about 8% of Australia’s domestic carbon emissions. Both Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield’s vice chair, Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, have been vocal in their support of action on climate change and the role of finance in accelerating it.

The woes of AGL are symptomatic of what much of the world’s power-generation sector has been facing. Rising volumes of wind and, in particular, solar entering the grid are pushing down the value of the wholesale electricity on which they make most of their money. Low or even negative prices in the middle of the day when the sun is shining and wind blowing are a nuisance for renewable generators — but for coal-fired