A One Nation senator who actively campaigns against renewable energy has been caught out owning shares in an off-grid solar and battery company.
Tyron Whitten’s register of business interests shows he owns a stake in Sky Energy Investments, a Victorian business that specialises in solar and batteries for homes, small businesses and construction sites.
Whitten was elected to the Senate in May last year.
Whitten regularly rails against large-scale renewable energy, particularly in his home state of Western Australia, while claiming that nuclear, coal and gas will be cheaper than renewables.
In a statement posted to Facebook about the discrepancy between his public views and private investments, Whitten claims that he is not against small-scale rooftop solar and home batteries, just against large-scale wind and solar farms and new transmission lines.
“You may have seen some news reports today claiming I’m a hypocrite for owning 0.00913% of a small solar company, which I disclosed,” he said in a video on Facebook.
“For the record, I do not have an issue with individuals using solar panels and batteries in their homes to decrease their skyrocketing power bills.
“I do not support solar farms, wind farms, or the thousands of kilometres of transmission lines from these farms.”
And yet, the homepage of Sky Energy’s website spells out clearly that its products are enabling Whitten’s energy nightmare.
On the homepage, Sky Energy says its flagship battery makes “large-scale deployment of clean energy more possible” by “offsetting expensive fossil fuels with much cheaper renewable solutions”.
Whitten also does not appear to understand that his vision for a nuclear future would force Australians to switch off their rooftop solar systems.
Modelling in 2024 of the Coalition’s nuclear policy showed that in Queensland alone, the government would need to require 45,000 households and small businesses to turn off their rooftop solar systems and use grid power to make a single nuclear power plant feasible.
That same year, Robert Barr, a member of the lobby group Nuclear for Climate, told the ABC that nuclear would ultimately “push out” large scale and rooftop solar.
It was a comment supported by energy experts who said the only way to make room for nuclear is to get rid of variable renewables, starting with the smallest – rooftop solar on homes.
Repeating the party line
Whitten spent late 2025 repeating the One Nation party line on renewables while agitating in Western Australia against state and federal energy policies.
He attended an information night in Narrogin where he claimed concerns were “ignored or dismissed” and in October attacked the Augusta Margaret River shire council over the Scott River wind proposal, which just received its federal environmental green light, leading the CEO to defend against allegations that it acted in bad faith over the project.
In December, Whitten said on Facebook that trying to “save the planet” by installing renewables was a “hoax”
In November, Whitten he claimed in another Facebook post that federal net zero policies were “wrecking” farmland and enriching “Labor-aligned” investors.
This year, Whitten has been much quieter in his calls for renewable energy to be cancelled, focusing instead on railing against immigration, calling for a federal Office for Men, and defending One Nation leader Pauline Hanson for being censured for racist stunts in the Senate.
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Rachel Williamson
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.
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