Australia Adds 7.1 GWh of Large-Scale Battery Storage in Six Months, Industry Report Says
A new Clean Energy Council report says nine utility-scale batteries began operating in the first half of 2026, exceeding the storage added throughout 2025.
Australia connected nine utility-scale battery projects with a combined energy-storage capacity of 7.1 gigawatt-hours during the first six months of 2026, according to a Clean Energy Council report released on Monday, 26 October. The projects represented 2.3 gigawatts of power capacity and an investment value of A$4.3 billion, the industry organisation said.
The report compares those installations with 5.1 gigawatt-hours of battery storage and 2 gigawatts of power capacity added during all of 2025. The comparison covers projects that started operating, not the total installed storage fleet or the amount of electricity actually delivered to customers. Gigawatts describe how quickly a battery can supply power; gigawatt-hours measure how much energy it can hold.
The council also recorded 12 renewable electricity generation projects reaching final investment decisions in the January-to-June period. Together, they represented 2.6 gigawatts of planned generating capacity, compared with 2.3 gigawatts reaching that milestone during the previous calendar year. A final investment decision indicates that a project has secured the commitment needed to proceed, rather than that it is already producing electricity.
Five renewable generation projects, totalling 1.4 gigawatts, began operating during the half-year, the council said. Its figures identify Queensland as the leading state for generation investment in the current pipeline and New South Wales as the state with the largest prospective battery-storage capacity.
The findings describe a rapid expansion of grid-scale storage, which can absorb electricity when supply is abundant and release it during periods of higher demand. They do not, on their own, establish that household electricity bills have fallen because of these particular installations. The report is an industry assessment, and its projections and policy recommendations should be distinguished from independently measured market outcomes.
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