In 2026, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) has forecast that up to 12 GWh of storage from a potential 520,000 residential battery installations will occur, and rooftop solar will rebound from 2.7 GW in 2025 to between 3-3.37 GW.
The CER sets a broad range for home battery installations between 350,000 and 520,000 equating to 8-12 GWh of storage saying it reflects the challenge of projecting uptake of a new program being the Cheaper Home Batteries Scheme (CHBS).
“The Cheaper Home Batteries Program exceeded early expectations in its first six months,” the CER said.
“More than 193,000 valid batteries were installed in 2025, delivering 4.6 GWh of capacity, more storage capacity than the 12 largest in-service large-scale batteries in the National Electricity Market (NEM) combined.”
Rooftop solar
As installer capacity shifted from small-scale rooftop solar to residential battery installs in 2025, the impact softened rooftop solar for part of 2025 compared to 2024 and totalled 2.8 GW of installations from around 270,000 systems.
The CER projects rooftop solar installations will recover however, to 3-3.7 GW in 2026, with the CHBS supporting ongoing demand for new and upgraded systems.
Large-scale renewable projects
The data has been released as part of its December quarter 2025 Quarterly Carbon Market Report which also notes large-scale renewable project approvals remained strong in 2025, totalling 4 GW, comprising 3 GW of solar approvals.
“This marks the biggest year for large-scale solar approvals on record, beating the previous record of 2.5 GW set in 2018,” the report says.
“2025 was also the first year on record with multiple quarters seeing more than 1 GW of large-scale solar approvals, with 1 GW being approved in Q2, and 1.3 GW being approved in Q4.”
The report highlights major solar farms approved in Q4 2025 include in Queensland, the 485 MW Aldoga Solar Farm, the 150 MW Munna Creek Solar Farm and 11 MW Gunsynd Solar Farm, in New South Wales (NSW), the 260 MW Glenellen Solar Farm and in Victoria, the 171 MW Carwarp Solar Farm.
Image: Clean Energy Regulator
“We expect 64-66 million large-scale generation certificate (LGC) creations in 2026, with oversupply likely to persist in 2026 through to the end of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) in 2030 despite ongoing growth in non-RET surrenders,” the CER said.
The projection stems from LGC supply exceeding demand in 2025, with 59.7 million creations, above the CER’s own 54-57 million forecast, which saw 6.8 GW of renewable energy capacity added over 2025.
Image: Clean Energy Regulator
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