Australia is now the third-largest utility-scale battery market in the world, behind China and the US, but structural barriers are impeding i__nvestment in big solar and wind projects.

The Clean Energy Council’s Clean Energy Australia 2026 report, published 26 May 2026, details a ‘breakthrough year’ for batteries – big and small – in 2025, driven by surging investment, falling costs and supportive policy settings. A record 2 gigawatts of new big battery capacity was added around the country over the course of 2025 – a 233 per cent increase on 2024.

But the report also noted the lack of investment in new wind and solar, essential to replace the country’s ageing coal generators – highlighting the fact that the federal government’s flagship Capacity Investment Scheme is yet to produce results, although the CEC did point to state planning issues and grid bottlenecks.

For utility-scale batteries, the CEC says 12 new projects were added to the National Electricity Market (NEM) and Western Australia’s main grid, with a total capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) and a total energy storage duration of 5.1 gigawatt-hours.

The CEC tally includes the AGL Energy-owned 500 megawatt (MW), 1,000 megawatt-hour (MWh) – or one gigawatt-hour – Liddell Battery, although the first stage of that project – 250 MW and 500 MWh – technically started its commissioning process at the start of this year.

Another major contributor to the national battery fleet in 2025 was the 600 MW and 1600 MWh first stage of the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH), jointly developed by Equis and the Victoria government-owned State Energy Corporation (SEC).

And mid-way through the year, Akaysha Energy’s Ulinda Park battery, near Millmerran in Queensland, started its journey through the........

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