Australia’s boom in construction of clean energy generation assets appears to have slowed down for now as the number of financial commitments that were made to proceed with new wind and solar farms plummeted last year.

But investment in batteries continues to rise and renewable energy now accounts for 42.7 percent of the nation’s electricity mix.

Renewable energy industry advocacy group the Clean Energy Council (CEC) has published the 2026 edition of its Clean Energy Australia report.

The report provides an overview of trends and developments in respect of renewable energy investment and generation.

According to the report, there were several positive developments across calendar 2025 from the viewpoint of the clean energy sector.

For example:

• The portion of Australia’s electricity generation that was produced by renewable energy increased from 38.9 percent in calendar 2024 to 42.7 percent in 2025.
• Momentum continues to build in terms of storage and large-scale batteries. In calendar 2025, financial commitments for large-scale battery generation increased by 10 percent to 4.3 GW. Meanwhile, large scale battery investment surged by 67 percent to reach $4.8 billion whilst the amount of large-scale battery capacity that was commissioned more than doubled to reach 2.0 GW.
• Capital costs continue to fall. In 2025, the capital cost associated with large scale batteries fell by 20 percent whilst that for utility scale solar fell by 8 percent. However, onshore wind generation costs increased by 6 percent during the year.

However, the pipeline of renewable generation assets appears to be slowing.

Across Australia, only 14 utility-scale wind and solar generation projects with a combined capacity of 2.3 GW reached financial close in 2025.

This is 46 percent lower compared with 2024 and was the second lowest level of commitments on record over the past decade (see chart).

This occurred as financial commitments for utility-scale solar fell by 29 percent to 1.4 GW whilst those for onshore wind developments plummeted by 59 percent to come int at just 0.9 GW.

Challenges meeting renewable targets

The latest report comes amid growing levels of scepticism that Australia will reach its target of achieving renewable energy penetration of 82 percent in Australia’s electricity market by 2030.

To achieve this target, the CEC says that the nation needs to deliver between 6.5 and 7GW of utility scale wind and solar each year along with around 3.6 GW of small scale residential and commercial solar.

As things stand, however, neither the capacity of projects which are being commissioned nor those which are achieving financial close are anywhere near that level (see chart).

The report also comes amid ongoing debate about Australia’s future energy direction.

As things stand, the government is pursuing a renewable-led transition under which solar and wind energy is supported by energy storage (batteries, pumped hydro etc.) and gas to provide reliable baseload power.

However, critics and conservative commentators believe that nuclear should be part of the energy mix.

In Queensland, meanwhile, the current government led by the Liberal National Party last year announced plans to extend the lifespan of the state’s state-owned coal fired power plants until at least 2046.

(image: AI generated via magnific)

Approval delays and community opposition

In its report, the CEC said that there are several positive developments for the renewable energy industry but cautioned that barriers remain across several areas.

On the positive side, the report noted that growing investment in battery storage is helping to provide greater support for a grid which is drawing more power generation from intermittent wind and solar assets.

In particular, a shift toward longer duration storage is enabling large volumes of solar energy to be shifted into the evening peak.

Meanwhile, recent reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) will have the potential to streamline approvals whilst a review of the National Electricity Market has set out a pathway for reforming wholesale electricity markets to better support a system which is dominated by renewables.

However, it said that the low number of new financial commitments for new generation projects is concerning.

To be sure, analysts have long expected that a large number of wind and solar generation projects would face significant challenges in making it through to construction.

This is the case as an enormous number of projects which are either in planning or under consideration are competing for a finite pool of funding and construction labour.

Beyond this, however, the report indicates several factors continue to hold investment back.

First, the current speed of the buildout of the transmission network is not sufficient to keep pace with the scale of renewable generation and storage projects which are seeking connection to the energy grid.

This is delaying generation projects and weakening investment signals for new generation capacity. It is happening despite efforts which are occurring through the Rewiring the Nation Plan.

Despite aforementioned reform efforts, meanwhile, the CEC says that planning processes for the assessment and approval of new projects remain ‘complex and inefficient’.

It says that challenges faced by developers include protracted and prescriptive assessment requirements, incremental expansion of assessment scope and shared infrastructure and supply chain risks that hinder the constructability of projects.

Developers must also navigate a complex mix of federal and state-based approval processes. These often have differing requirements and timelines.

For example, several wind farm projects have faced inconsistent curtailment conditions at the state and federal level in relation to bird and bat impacts.

Finally, new generation and transmission projects continue to face opposition from some local communities on account of the localised impacts which projects have in terms of communities, agriculture and vegetation/biodiversity.

Last year, conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) launched a database which it said documents ‘the growing grassroots opposition’ to ‘large-scale wind, solar, battery and transmission projects which are being imposed on regional communities’.

That database currently lists 153 projects which the IPA says have been opposed by local community members since 2008.

In its report, the CEC acknowledges that local community support ‘remains challenging in some regions’.

However, it claims that much of the opposition is due to ‘organised misinformation campaigns’ which are ‘manufacturing concerns’ and derailing critical generation and transmission projects.

Calls for action

In response, the CEC has called for governments, regulators and industry to work together in four areas.

These include:

• Strengthening economic signals to give investors the certainty which they need in order to commit large-scale capital to projects. This can be done by improving Capacity Investment Scheme tenders and delivering effective and investible markets with fixed commitments to transmission connection timelines.
• Cutting excess red tape by resolving approval requirements and duplication across jurisdictions and reducing project approval times and costs – including through reforms to the EPBC Act.
• Building community trust by raising social performance standards across the industry and demonstrating the economic contributions of the sector to regional economies while elevating the industry’s narrative to counter ‘the misinformation’ that is delaying projects.
• Better integrating consumer energy resources by strengthening network integration of rooftop solar and batteries, delivering greater value for household energy asset owners and reducing regulatory complexity for industry.

Jackie Trad, CEO of the Clean Energy Council, said that the need for action should not be underestimated.

“2025 was a year of new records. More renewable energy, more batteries, more households generating their own power,” Trad said.

“Australia’s clean energy transition is at a critical juncture. Renewables are supplying nearly half our electricity; we are now a top-three global player in big battery storage; and households are taking control of their own power bills in record numbers.

“But we need to be honest about where we are, and where we need to be. The number that demands attention is going in the wrong direction: financial commitments for large-scale wind and solar is at a decade low. That is a gap we must close.”

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