While Australia’s renewable energy industry notched several records in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025, is the pipeline just as healthy?
The Clean Energy Council (CEC) observed record commissioning results from generation and batteries across the three months, with nine generation projects completed (63 per cent of the total 2025 pool) and a record four storage projects coming online.
As for the future pipeline, Australia had 80 generation projects and 75 storage projects in the works as of the completion of the CEC’s quarterly investment report, released this week.
NSW leads the way, with 39 projects either financial committed to or under construction. The state has more storage projects (4307MW/11,528MWh) in the pipeline than generation capacity (3153MW).
Other states with more storage projects underway than generation include South Australia (2299MW of storage and 945MW of generation; 19 projects in total), Western Australia (1137MW of storage and 1090MW of generation; 24 projects in total) and the ACT (250MW of storage and 0MW of generation; one project in total).
With 29 projects in the pipeline, Victoria leads the way when it comes to capital investment committed, with $9.62 billion slated to be spent on new renewable assets. It’s the most expensive state to develop a project on a megawatt basis, costing $1.86 million/MW, compared with Queensland at $1.32 million/MW ($8.95 billion of capital investment) and New South Wales at $1.17 million/MW ($8.69 billion of capital investment).
It must be noted that much of Victoria’s capital investment is derived from wind ($4.65 billion), with $2.24 billion committed to solar. Queensland leads the way in the wind category, with $5.07 billion committed to this energy source and only $480 million committed to solar.
NSW only has $820 million committed to wind and $3.53 billion committed to solar, demonstrating where its priorities lie.
The CEC saw financing for generation capacity accelerate in Q4 2025, with five projects (four wind and one solar) amounting to 1.2GW reaching financial close. This was more than the three previous quarters combined.
“Remarkably there were four onshore wind farms that reached financial close in the final weeks of December, in a year that had so far seen no wind farms reach this stage across the country,” the CEC said in its report.
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