How much solar, wind and battery power Australia added in 2026
Australia set a renewable energy record in the financial year that ended in June 2026. The Australian Energy Market Operator, the body that runs the National Electricity Market, the grid covering the eastern and southern states, reported that 9.1 gigawatts of new solar, wind and battery power reached full output on that grid over the year, more than double the total that finished the year before. A gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts, enough capacity, at full output, to power hundreds of thousands of homes. Reaching full output is the last step in the connection process the operator tracks, after a project applies, wins approval and finishes construction to start running at its full capacity.
Margarida Pimentel, group manager for onboarding and connections at the operator, said the year set a new mark.
A record 9.1 GW of new generation and storage capacity reached full output in the last financial year, more than double the result achieved in FY25.
Margarida Pimentel, group manager for onboarding and connections at the Australian Energy Market Operator. Source 1.
These are 3 separate stages of the same yearly connection process, not additive totals.
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| Reached full output | 9.1 |
| Registration approvals | 7.4 |
| Application approvals | 14.2 |
Battery storage did most of the work
Battery storage supplied most of the new capacity that finished in 2026. Of the 9.1 gigawatts, over 5 gigawatts came from big batteries, while wind and solar combined added under 4 gigawatts. Of the projects that reached full output over the year, 34 of them added battery storage, together supplying 12.9 gigawatt hours of storage capacity. Batteries also lead what is still waiting to connect. The pipeline of projects still moving through the connection process grew 42%, from 53 gigawatts at the start of the year to 75.4 gigawatts by the end of it, and battery projects now make up 52% of that pipeline, ahead of 18% for solar projects paired with batteries and 15% for onshore wind. Those 3 categories do not add up to the whole pipeline, since other technologies fill the rest.
These 3 categories total 85% of the pipeline. The remaining 15% is other technologies the source does not break out.
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| Battery storage | 52 |
| Solar plus storage | 18 |
| Onshore wind | 15 |
In the final 3 months of the year alone, 14 projects reached full output, adding 3.9 gigawatts. Battery storage supplied 2.7 gigawatts of that quarter, more than the 0.5 gigawatts from solar projects paired with storage, the 0.4 gigawatts from solar alone and the 0.2 gigawatts from wind combined.
These 4 figures total 3.8 gigawatts, about 0.1 gigawatts short of the 3.9 gigawatts the operator reports for the quarter, a rounding gap across 4 rounded numbers, not an error to force into agreement.
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| Battery storage | 2.7 |
| Solar plus storage | 0.5 |
| Solar | 0.4 |
| Wind | 0.2 |
A record year for finishing, a weak year for starting
The connections record and a separate finding from the Clean Energy Council, the renewable energy industry association, describe different points on the same pipeline rather than a contradiction. The council reports that only 2.3 gigawatts of new renewable generation reached financial close in Australia in 2025, one of the lowest levels in a decade. Financial close is the point where the money to build a project gets committed, years before construction finishes. Full output is the finish line for projects that reached financial close years earlier, before this slowdown began. A record year for finishing projects and a weak year for starting new ones can both be true at once, because they measure 2 different stages of the same multi year build process.
The council also reports 90 unscheduled outages at coal fired power plants over the summer of 2025 to 2026, with coal capacity offline 25% of the time on average. Jackie Trad, the council chief executive, said the build out has to match that decline.
The pace of the build-out must keep pace with coal's decline.
Jackie Trad, chief executive of the Clean Energy Council. Source 5.
Renewable sources supplied 43% of the electricity generated in Australia in 2025, up from 39% in 2024, according to the council, the same year the connection pipeline for new projects grew 42% larger.