Two Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) tenders have opened in Western Australia, seeking 1.6GW of renewable energy generation in the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM).
Announced last week, by Australia’s climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen, the tenders, which form part of the federal government’s CIS initiative to seek 40GW of renewables and energy storage by 2030, will specifically target projects that will connect to Western Australia’s South-West Interconnected System (SWIS), and by extension, the WEM.
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According to Bowen, these latest rounds will unlock an estimated AU$4 billion (US$2.62 billion) of additional private investment in the WEM.
“These tenders will help deliver cleaner, more reliable and more affordable energy for Western Australian households and businesses,” Bowen said in the announcement.
Both tenders will be the first to implement a streamlined single-stage bidding process, consolidating technical and financial proposals, intended to shorten the tender duration from nine months to approximately six. This approach is designed to increase efficiency and support the timely signing of Capacity Investment Scheme Agreements (CISAs).
In an interview with ESN Premium, Nick Hawke, director of Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), recently said this move was a positive shift for the CIS scheme.
Potential proponents are advised to register before 10 October 2025 for both tenders, with bids to close on 7 November. Successful bids into Tenders 5 and 6 are expected to be announced in March 2026. You can find out more about registering via the official website.
At the recent Battery Asset Management Summit Australia 2025, Thimo Mueller, general manager, commercial at AusEnergy Services Ltd (ASL), formerly AEMO Services, confirmed that the results from Tender 3 of the CIS initiative will be released “in the coming weeks”.
National Capacity Investment Scheme programme development
The Western Australian tenders build upon the broader national CIS programme, which began with a pilot in 2023.
In December 2024, the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water announced the results of CIS Tender 1, which focused on the National Electricity Market (NEM), which spans Australia’s eastern and southern states.
This tender selected 19 renewable energy projects totalling 6.38GW of capacity, including eight hybrid power projects with 3.6GWh of storage.
The tender reportedly attracted 84 initial bids with a combined capacity of 27GW – approximately 4.5 times the tender capacity – demonstrating the strong market interest in the CIS model.
The successful Tender 1 projects included 2.8GW of solar generation and 3.6GW of wind capacity. Geographically, New South Wales and Victoria each secured seven projects, with New South Wales receiving 3.7GW plus 904MWh of battery storage, and Victoria gaining 1.6GW plus 1,458MWh of storage.
South Australia and Queensland rounded out the allocations with 574MW and 550MW of generation capacity, respectively, and Queensland also secured 1,200MWh of storage.
To read the full article, please visit Energy-Storage.news.
