Rystad Energy

The Potentia Energy Greenough River 1 and Sun Energy Merredin solar farms in Western Australia have topped Rystad Energy’s leaderboard for best performance in March 2025.

Rystad Energy research has forecast Australia’s 82% renewable energy by 2030 target, will fall short by 17% under what they describe as the most optimistic scenarios, with gas being a key to energy security and transition.

The 40 MW Greenough River Solar Farm in Western Australia has been identified by energy consultancy Rystad Energy as the best performing large-scale PV asset in Australia last month.

Solar farms in New South Wales led the way for Australia’s utility scale PV energy output in January, generating 929 GWh of renewable electricity to drive all Australian large-scale PV and wind generation up 12% on the same time last year.

Large-scale solar farms across Australia generated a record 16.2 TWh of clean energy in 2024, delivering a near 7% increase on the previous year and taking the contribution from renewables to a new record high.

Big BESS is booming in Australia, with almost 5 GW of projects under construction last year, according Rystad Energy. While encouraging, the analyst reports that the volume remains insufficient to overcome growing rates of renewable curtailment. “We have around 3 GW operational at the moment, but about half of that is still in commissioning. So you still only have 1.5 GW on the market where the average load is 23 GW,” Rystad Energy’s David Dixon said.

Lightsource bp has started construction of its million panel Goulburn River hybrid project in NSW and Woolooga battery energy storage system in Queensland, simultaneously bumping the nation’s renewables capacity starting construction over the 8 GW line.

Battery projects continue to dominate Australia’s large-scale clean energy build-out with 6 GW of new capacity added to the nation’s renewables project pipeline last month, almost 4 GW more than the combined capacity of new solar and wind added during the same period.

Australia has firmed as the world’s fourth-largest market for utility scale batteries with new data from research consultancy Rystad Energy revealing that almost 3 GW / 8 GWh of battery energy storage projects have started construction in the first seven months of 2024.

The increasing role of pumped hydro technology in Australia’s renewable energy transition is expected to be mirrored in the neighbouring Southeast Asia region with international consultancy Rystad Energy tipping the total capacity of operational projects will surge from the current 2.3 GW to 18 GW by 2033.