New generation and storage projects in the final commissioning stage have grown year-on-year from 1.5 gigawatts (GW) as at the March quarter last year to 7 GW in 2025, highlighting investment momentum in renewables and firming technologies in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Each quarter, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) publishes a scorecard of generation and storage projects working through the connection process in the NEM, from application approval through to commissioning to full output.
For the March quarter, seven projects totalling 1.7 GW received application approvals, seven were registered (2.4 GW) and five reached full output: the Blyth Bess (200 MW), Gangarri Solar Farm (150 MW), Crookwell 3 Wind Farm (56 MW), Mokoan Solar Farm (46 MW) and Kingaroy Solar Farm (40 MW).
AEMO Onboarding & Connections Group Manager Margarida Pimentel said the pipeline of new projects needed to replace ageing power stations and to meet future demand is the largest to date.
“It’s a new record of renewable and firming projects working to connect to the National Electricity Market,” Ms Pimentel said.
As of March 2025, the pipeline of new generation and storage capacity exceeded 51 GW, which is a 37% year-on-year increase.
By technology type over the same period, standalone batteries have increased from 11 GW to 20.5 GW, hybrid solar and battery projects have increased from 4.5 GW to 5.6 GW, wind projects from 7.5 GW to 8.7 GW, and solar from 10.2 GW to 12.1 GW.
Across the NEM states, 36% of this capacity is in New South Wales, 31% in Queensland, 23% in Victoria, 10% in South Australia and 0.25% in Tasmania.
“So far this financial year, 42 project applications have been approved (9.2 GW), 28 projects (7.5 GW) were registered, and 16 projects (2.5 GW) reached their full MW output,” Ms Pimentel said.
Along with the growing diversity of projects connecting to the grid, there are also an increasing number of applications for alterations to a generating system being made, including adding batteries, firmware updates, like-for-like replacements and plant alterations.
Of the 10 alterations in registration, seven are battery additions, making up an additional 480 MW of added storage capacity. Three of the six alterations in commissioning are battery additions, making up an additional 304 MW of storage capacity.
Working in collaboration with industry as part of the Connections Reform Initiative (CRI) a suite of guidance documents has been developed in the NER 5.3.9 workstream to aid in the execution and acceleration of these applications in the connections pipeline.
Also of note during the March quarter was the stage one release of Project Energy Connect, a new transmission line connecting South Australia and New South Wales, with a spur into Victoria.
“With stage one of Project Energy Connect built and tested, AEMO, ElectraNet and TransGrid have released 150 MW of electricity to flow between South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, which will enable capacity for new generation in these areas,” Ms Pimentel said.