The Australian Government’s Clean Energy Regulator (CER) approved 56 new power stations, with 797MW of renewable energy capacity, in July this year, led by the 440MW Culcairn solar plant in New South Wales (NSW).
The Culcairn plant entered the commissioning phase in June, and is to be co-located with a 100MW/200MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). The other significant project to reach commissioning in recent months is the first stage of the Wambo Wind Farm, a 252MW project in Queensland, as Australia looks to advance its clean energy goals.
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Both projects contribute to Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, a plan to add 33GWh of clean energy generation to Australia’s energy mix each year between 2020 and 2030. The graph below demonstrates the commitment of utility-scale solar and wind projects to this initiative, with over 27GW of large-scale renewable energy projects now in operation, shown in green.
The other projects – “committed” and “probable” – both cover projects that have been “firmly announced” according to the CER.
However, the CER also noted that investment is shifting from the utility-scale renewable sector to distributed power. In the first seven months of 2025, 952MW of solar and wind projects reached a final investment decision, compared to 1.3GW of small-scale renewable energy projects.
Both figures are notably lower than the total capacity invested in in 2024 – where investors supported 4.4GW of utility-scale renewable energy and 3.1GW of small-scale power projects, respectively – and the shift from one aspect of the sector to another is notable. Indeed, figures form the Clean Energy Council (CEC) show that, at the end of 2024, installed rooftop PV capacity alone had exceeded 25GW, more operational capacity in Australia than black and brown coal combined.
Meanwhile, in the National Electricity Market (NEM), which covers all of Australia’s grids save for those in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, more than half a gigawatt of utility-scale solar capacity was approved in April. The majority of this capacity comes from the 520MW Stubbo solar project in NSW, and suggests that there is still an appetite for new utility-scale projects within the NEM.
