Market Overview
| Study Period | 2020 - 2030 |
|---|---|
| Base Year For Estimation | 2024 |
| Forecast Data Period | 2025 - 2030 |
| Market Volume (2025) | 128.59 gigawatt |
| Market Volume (2030) | 193.75 gigawatt |
| Growth Rate (2025 - 2030) | 8.55% CAGR |
| Market Concentration | Medium |
Major Players
*Disclaimer: Major Players sorted in no particular order Image © Mordor Intelligence. Reuse requires attribution under CC BY 4.0. |
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Australia Power Market Analysis by Mordor Intelligence
The Australia Power Market size in terms of installed base is expected to grow from 128.59 gigawatt in 2025 to 193.75 gigawatt by 2030, at a CAGR of 8.55% during the forecast period (2025-2030).
The accelerated build-out is anchored in structural coal retirements, large-scale solar and wind additions, and a national bet on dispatchable storage. Federal concessional loans for super-grid transmission, state-level capacity auctions, and rising corporate power-purchase agreements are together reshaping competitive dynamics and redirecting capital from legacy thermal assets to hybrid renewable-plus-battery configurations. Growing rooftop solar, record electric-vehicle uptake, and electrification of heating are redefining residential load profiles, while mining and data-center operators lock in round-the-clock renewable contracts. Interconnector delays, gas-price volatility, and diverging coal-exit policies temper near-term enthusiasm but also underscore the strategic value of flexible capacity and advanced grid control systems. Against this backdrop, the Australian power market offers a sizable runway for investors able to navigate policy fragmentation, transmission constraints, and community opposition.
Key Report Takeaways
- By power source, renewables held 53.9% of the Australian power market share in 2024, while their 14.7% CAGR through 2030 positions them as the fastest-growing segment.
- By end user, utilities commanded 72.2% of the Australian power market size in 2024, whereas the residential segment is forecast to expand at a 10.2% CAGR through 2030.
Australia Power Market Trends and Insights
Drivers Impact Analysis
| Driver | (~) % Impact on CAGR Forecast | Geographic Relevance | Impact Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid utility-scale solar PV deployment under Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) | +2.8% | National, with concentration in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria | Medium term (2-4 years) |
| Surge in corporate PPAs from mining & data-center operators in Western Australia | +1.4% | Western Australia, spillover to Northern Territory | Short term (≤2 years) |
| Grid-scale battery & pumped-hydro investments accelerated by Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) | +2.1% | National, early gains in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales | Medium term (2-4 years) |
| Federal “Rewiring the Nation” funding for super-grid transmission to Renewable Energy Zones | +1.6% | National, priority corridors in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria | Long term (≥4 years) |
| Hydrogen-ready gas-turbine projects boosting flexible generation pipeline | +0.9% | New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia | Medium term (2-4 years) |
| Electrification of homes & EV uptake raising peak demand in eastern states | +1.2% | Eastern states (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland) | Short term (≤2 years) |
| Source: Mordor Intelligence | |||
Rapid Utility-Scale Solar PV Deployment Under Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET)
Clean Energy Regulator data show that renewables supplied 40% of National Electricity Market generation in the first half of 2025, up from 37% in Q2 2025. Queensland hosts marquee projects such as Lightsource bp’s 750 MW Sandy Creek solar farm, which cleared development approvals in 2024.[1]Lightsource bp, “Sandy Creek Solar Farm Project Overview,” lightsourcebp.com Elevated large-scale generation-certificate prices throughout 2024 compressed payback periods and spurred developers to fast-track financial close before the 2030 deadline. ARENA’s USD 100 million concessional-debt facility lowered capital costs for solar-plus-storage hybrids and directly targets midday oversupply and evening ramp challenges as rooftop systems surpassed 22 GW across 3.7 million homes.[2]Australian Renewable Energy Agency, “Solar-Battery Hybrids Funding Round,” arena.gov.au
Grid-Scale Battery & Pumped-Hydro Investments Accelerated by Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS)
CIS Tender 4 alone awarded 6.6 GW of generation and 11.4 GWh of storage, and cumulative awards now exceed 20 GWh. Revenue-floor contracts allow project finance at sub-6% rates, illustrated by Origin Energy’s 700 MW / 2.8 GWh Eraring battery scheduled for 2025 commissioning. Incumbents are redeploying balance sheets: AGL’s Torrens Island battery (250 MW / 250 MWh) and Neoen’s Hornsdale expansion (194 MW / 389 MWh) show storage pivoting to offset coal closures. Snowy 2.0 faces cost overruns, yet Tasmania’s 2.5 GW Battery of the Nation leverages existing reservoirs and enjoys clearer execution pathways.
Federal “Rewiring the Nation” Funding for Super-Grid Transmission to Renewable Energy Zones
Canberra's AUD 20 billion concessional-loan package targets bottlenecks that curtailed renewable output during 2024. TransGrid's 500 kV HumeLink unlocked 3 GW of Snowy hydro capacity after route approval in 2025. Powerlink's CopperString 2.0 corridor will integrate North Queensland renewables by 2029. Community pushback delayed the VNI West interconnector, underscoring the importance of social license in Australia's power market execution.
Electrification of Homes & EV Uptake Raising Peak Demand in Eastern States
Nationwide EV sales hit 98,000 units in 2024, equal to 8.3% of new-car registrations, lifting the on-road fleet to 190,000. Evening charging now overlaps the post-sunset peak, raising the value proposition for 4-hour to 6-hour storage. The Cheaper Home Batteries Program has 55,000 approved applications, equivalent to 1 GWh of behind-the-meter storage. Rooftop solar covers one-third of homes, but new export-limit rules in South Australia and Western Australia steer customers towards self-consumption. AEMO projects that electrification could add 15 GW to peak demand by 2035.
Restraints Impact Analysis
| Restraint | (~) % Impact on CAGR Forecast | Geographic Relevance | Impact Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transmission bottlenecks causing curtailment in Queensland & New South Wales REZs | −1.3% | Queensland, New South Wales REZs | Short term (≤2 years) |
| Community opposition delaying wind farms & HV interconnector routes | −0.8% | Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania | Medium term (2-4 years) |
| Rising natural-gas feedstock prices eroding peaker competitiveness | −0.6% | National, acute in South Australia, Victoria | Short term (≤2 years) |
| Policy uncertainty around 2030 coal-exit pathways deterring capital allocation | −1.1% | National, divergent signals across states | Medium term (2-4 years) |
| Source: Mordor Intelligence | |||
Transmission Bottlenecks Causing Curtailment in Queensland & New South Wales REZs
AEMO recorded solar and wind output constraints of up to 20% in 2024 as REZ generation surpassed network limits. Central-West Orana relies on a single 330 kV line to Sydney, forcing negative bids during high-irradiance periods. Similar compression is evident in North Queensland pending CopperString 2.0. Curtailment raises merchant revenue volatility and deters infrastructure funds seeking predictable cash flows. AEMO’s 2024 Integrated System Plan identifies an AUD 15 billion transmission gap by 2035.
Policy Uncertainty Around 2030 Coal-Exit Pathways Deterring Capital Allocation
Queensland has extended Callide to 2031 and Tarong to 2037, while New South Wales and Victoria promote faster retirements. AGL will close Loy Yang A by FY35.[3]AGL Energy, “Loy Yang A Closure Announcement 2024,” agl.com.au Without a national coal-exit roadmap, sequencing replacement capacity remains unclear. AEMO’s electricity-opportunity outlook warns retirements could outpace replacements during low-renewables periods. Brookfield’s buy-out of Origin adds private-equity ambiguity to closure timelines.
Segment Analysis
By Power Source: Renewables Capture Majority Share as Coal Retires
Renewables held 53.9% of installed capacity in 2024 and are on track to surpass 110 GW by 2030, adding 14.7% annually and underpinning the Australian power market size at the technology level. Solar PV led with 22 GW, while wind additions centered on South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. Snowy 2.0 and Battery of the Nation will expand hydro-derived dispatchable reserves post-2028. The thermal fleet’s 46.1% share will slide as coal closures accelerate, though hydrogen-ready gas turbines offer flexible backup. High east-coast gas prices above AUD 12 per gigajoule in 2025 diminish peaker margins.
Complementing utility-scale build-outs, rooftop solar now blankets 3.7 million homes. The combined solar fleet already shifts midday net load toward negative levels in South Australia, prompting synchronous-condenser deployments and dynamic-inverter pilots. Pumped-hydro’s long-duration profile offsets wind lulls and evening ramps, supporting grid security as coal exits. Geothermal, biomass, and tidal technologies remain peripheral, representing under 1% of capacity due to scale and cost disadvantages.
Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase
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By End User: Utilities Dominate, Yet Residential Growth Outpaces
Utility buyers captured 72.2% of demand in 2024, translating into the largest slice of Australia's power market share. Yet rooftop solar saturation, electrification, and EV adoption push the residential segment to a 10.2% CAGR. One-in-three households now host panels, and the Cheaper Home Batteries Program incentivizes self-consumption. Time-of-use tariffs and export limits encourage load-shaping behaviors that reduce grid draw during midday oversupply.
Corporate and industrial buyers increasingly contract directly with renewable projects. BHP and Rio Tinto both executed multi-hundred-megawatt PPAs to decarbonize Western Australia mining operations. Data-center operators in Perth and regional hubs demand 24/7 clean power, spurring solar-plus-storage hybrids. Spot-price spikes above AUD 300/MWh during 2024 low-wind events underline the hedging value of fixed-price PPAs, steering more C&I energy budgets toward renewables.
Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase
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Geography Analysis
New South Wales and Queensland anchor investment momentum, hosting the most ambitious Renewable Energy Zones, but also suffering the deepest curtailment in 2024. Transmission remedies include TransGrid’s 500 kV HumeLink (360 km) and Powerlink’s CopperString 2.0 (1,100 km). Victoria reached 30% renewable penetration in 2024 off the back of Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, while South Australia remains a national laboratory with 73% renewable penetration and pioneering grid-forming inverter deployments. Western Australia operates its own grid, where Synergy’s Yandin Wind Farm and expanded Greenough River Solar Farm underline a transition away from gas-fired baseload.
Tasmania’s 2.5 GW Battery of the Nation and AUD 3.5 billion Marinus Link place the island as a dispatchable hydro reserve for the mainland. Remote Northern Territory and Western Australia microgrids rely on diesel substitution through hybrid solar-battery projects led by Horizon Power. Each state’s policy stance on coal exists, transmission planning, and community engagement shapes localized risk-return profiles for developers across the Australian power market.
Competitive Landscape
Legacy retailers AGL Energy, Origin Energy, and EnergyAustralia still control roughly 60% of retail accounts and hold sizable thermal generation but face price pressure from agile renewable developers. Neoen’s AUD 610 million acquisition of three battery projects in 2024 makes it the largest independent renewable operator with more than 3 GW operating or under construction. Lightsource bp recycled capital by divesting 1.04 GW to BJEI, then secured approvals for the 750 MW Sandy Creek solar farm.[4]Lightsource bp, “Portfolio Sale to BJEI 2024,” lightsourcebp.com
Brookfield’s Origin buy-out brings deeper balance-sheet firepower that could slow coal retirement if profit incentives favor life extensions. Transmission operators such as TransGrid and Powerlink pivot to dynamic line rating and digital substations to unlock latent corridor capacity under Australian Energy Regulator efficiency benchmarks. Technology-wise, competition around grid-forming inverter software pits Tesla’s Megapack against Fluence and Wartsila, heralding a software-defined edge in battery plant economics across the Australian power market.
Australia Power Industry Leaders
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AGL Energy Ltd.
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Origin Energy Ltd.
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EnergyAustralia Holdings
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Snowy Hydro Ltd.
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Alinta Energy Pty Ltd.
- *Disclaimer: Major Players sorted in no particular order
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Recent Industry Developments
- December 2025: Vestas Wind Systems A/S, a Danish wind turbine manufacturer, has secured an order from Tilt Renewables. The order pertains to the 108-MW Waddi Wind Farm located in Western Australia's Wheatbelt. As part of the agreement, Vestas will supply and install 18 units of its V162-6.0 MW EnVentus platform turbines.
- December 2025: SPIE, a prominent European player in multi-technical services spanning energy infrastructure and communications, has inked a deal to acquire Worley Power Services, a division of Worley Group. This move allows SPIE Global Services Energy to broaden its technical maintenance expertise, now encompassing power generation assets.
- December 2025: Samsung C&T, the construction division of the Samsung Group, announced that its partnership with Australia's DT Infrastructure clinched a deal worth 940 million won (approximately $635.7 million) to construct high-voltage power transmission facilities in Australia.
- December 2025: Canadian Solar Inc. has revealed that its majority-owned subsidiary, CSI Solar Co., Ltd., through its business unit e-STORAGE, will provide a significant battery energy storage system to Vena Energy. This system is destined for the Tailem Bend 3 project located in South Australia. The undertaking will see the provision of a 204 MW / 408 MWh AC battery energy storage system, underscoring a pivotal advancement in the region's energy storage capacity expansion.
Research Methodology Framework and Report Scope
Market Definitions and Key Coverage
Our study defines the Australia power market as the total grid-connected electricity generation capacity, coal, natural gas, oil, hydro, solar PV, wind, biomass, and other minor sources, expressed in gigawatts and available to serve industrial, commercial, residential, or storage loads.
Scope exclusion: stand-alone diesel gensets that supply isolated mining or construction sites without exporting to the public grid are outside this boundary.
Segmentation Overview
- By Power Source
- Thermal (Coal, Natural Gas, Oil and Diesel)
- Nuclear
- Renewables (Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal, Biomass & Waste, Tidal)
- By End User
- Utilities
- Commercial and Industrial
- Residential
- By T&D Voltage Level (Qualitative Analysis only)
- High-Voltage Transmission (Above 230 kV)
- Sub-Transmission (69 to 161 kV)
- Medium-Voltage Distribution (13.2 to 34.5 kV)
- Low-Voltage Distribution (Up to 1 kV)
Detailed Research Methodology and Data Validation
Primary Research
Mordor analysts held structured interviews with grid planners, network service providers, equipment suppliers, renewable project developers, and leading rooftop-solar installers across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia. Insights on realistic ramp-up calendars, average capacity factors, and reserve-margin expectations sharpened assumptions drawn from desk work.
Desk Research
Initial fact-finding drew on public datasets from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Australian Energy Market Operator, and the Clean Energy Council, which list fleet composition, retirements, and planned additions. According to Mordor Intelligence, these baselines were cross-checked with International Energy Agency statistics and plant announcements captured through Dow Jones Factiva.
A second sweep tapped D&B Hoovers for company filings, customs shipment records on Volza for turbine and panel inflows, and parliamentary papers that clarify policy timelines.
These examples show the open-source backbone supporting our numbers; many further documents were reviewed before figures were locked.
Market-Sizing & Forecasting
A top-down construct converts AEMO demand outlooks into capacity needs; then sampled project lists provide a bottom-up sense-check that tunes totals. Five market fingerprints, coal retirement schedule, annual renewable auction volume, capacity-weighted plant factors, GDP-linked demand growth, and required system reserve margin feed a multivariate regression that projects each driver to 2030. Results are reconciled with supplier roll-ups before Mordor finalizes the baseline.
Data Validation & Update Cycle
Outputs pass two layers of analyst review; variance flags prompt fresh calls with market contacts, and any material policy shift triggers an interim refresh. Reports rebuild every twelve months, and an analyst re-runs the model just before release so clients receive our latest view.
Why Our Australia Power Baseline Commands Confidence
Published estimates often diverge because firms track different metrics, apply varied scope boundaries, or refresh models on contrasting timetables.
Mordor's disciplined scope, driver-based projections, and annual rebuild narrow such gaps for decision-makers.
Benchmark comparison
| Market Size | Anonymized source | Primary gap driver |
|---|---|---|
| 121.79 GW (2025) | Mordor Intelligence | - |
| 277.10 TWh (2024) | Regional Consultancy A | Measures electricity generated, not installed capacity; limited behind-the-meter inclusion |
| USD 41.6 bn (2024) | Industry Publisher B | Values electricity sales, mixes generation and fuel revenue |
| 51.41 GW (2024) | Trade Journal C | Counts renewable assets only, excludes coal and gas plants |
Taken together, the comparison shows that our transparent variables, frequent refresh cadence, and blended top-down plus bottom-up checks deliver a balanced, traceable baseline buyers can rely on.
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Key Questions Answered in the Report
How large is the Australia power market in 2025 and what growth is expected by 2030?
Installed capacity stands at 128.59 GW in 2025 and is forecast to reach 193.75 GW by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 8.55%.
Which technology will add the most capacity through 2030?
Utility-scale solar, supported by the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target and corporate PPAs, contributes the largest absolute capacity growth, while wind and battery storage provide complementary peaks.
What share of capacity do renewables hold today?
Renewables command 53.9% of installed capacity, and their continued 14.7% CAGR positions them to dominate by 2030.
How significant are storage projects in Australia's transition?
CIS-backed batteries already exceed 20 GWh of committed capacity, with the 700 MW / 2.8 GWh Eraring battery and Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro set to anchor evening peak management.
What are the main constraints to faster renewable integration?
Transmission congestion in Queensland and New South Wales Renewable Energy Zones, community opposition to new high-voltage lines, and divergent state coal-exit timelines pose the largest hurdles.
Who are the leading players in the new-build pipeline?
Neoen, Lightsource bp, and Iberdrola dominate greenfield solar-plus-storage pipelines, while AGL Energy and Origin Energy pivot legacy portfolios toward large-scale batteries.
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