Man behind Australia’s most powerful battery named one of Time’s climate titans, with Pope and King Charles
Waratah Super Battery. Photo: Akaysha Energy.
Giles Parkinson
Nov 2, 2025
Battery
Storage
The head of the Australian company building the country’s most powerful battery project has been named one of Time Magazine’s Climate100, featuring in the “titans” section alongside the Pope and King Charles.
Nick Cater is the CEO of Akaysha Energy, which is building the 850 MW, 1680 MWh Waratah Super Battery at the site of the shuttered Munmorah coal fired power station on the central coast of NSW.
The battery is rated as the most powerful ever built in Australia, and the bigger machine of any type connected to the Australian grid. It has nearly finished its commissioning process but is already acting as a kind of giant “shock absorber” to the grid to help fill the gaps created by more coal closures.
Carter was named one of 18 “titans” of the industry, alongside King Charles II, Pope Leo XIV, and Eric Li, the founder of Geely Holdings, the Chinese car company, Robin Zheng, the founder of Chinese battery giant CATL, and Colby Hastings, the head of residential energy at Tesla.
Other winners included President Lula of Brazil, the governors of California, New York and Hawaii, and Australian foreign minister, and former climate minister Penny Wong, who was named as one of 20 “defenders.”
Earlier this year, iron ore billionaire and green energy evangelist Andrew Forrest was the only Australian to make it on to Time Magazine’s 100 Mosts Influential list.
Time says Carter was chosen because of his role with Waratah, which it also describes as the world’s most powerful battery, not just Australia’s.
In a Q&A published in the magazine, Carter says the most important thing a government can do is foster bipartisanship – something that was achieved in NSW through the infrastructure roadmap that delivered Waratah.
But it has yet to be seen at federal level, despite decades of trying, and seems further away than even now after the Nationals dropped its support for Net Zero.
“This issue is too big and critical not to have a bipartisan stance; otherwise, it is impossible to solve economically and technically in a socially equitable way” Carter said.
He says he will only get to work by bicycle – for climate reasons, as well as physical and mental health – and lamented the “crazy ideology” that impacts the green energy transition.
“There is so much that governments and policymakers can do, but they are not doing it, and we are slipping,” he said.
“Everyone needs to get aligned, not just in an intra-country way, but in an interregional and global way. Stop fighting and get aligned for the common good. We need a global carbon platform and market. We can’t keep assuming that dumping manmade greenhouse gases is free or has no consequence.
“Partly, this is due to the crazy ideology that dominates climate change, which is fuelled by a deep distrust of science and scientists.
“I would encourage people to get back to basics and understand what science is, and what scientists and engineers do when they conduct research, build forecasts, and suggest techno-economic methods to resolve it.”
Akaysha is also building the Ulinda Park and Brendale battery projects in Queensland, as well as the 410 MW, 1640 MWh Orana battery in NSW. It also has an underwriting agreement for the 300 MW, 1,200 MWh Elaine battery in Victoria.
You can hear an in depth interview with Carter in this recent episode of Renew Economy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast: Energy Insiders Podcast: The making of Australia’s biggest batter
reneweconomy.com.au |
