The Federal Government has announced the ‘largest single ever tender for renewable energy in Australia’, with the first auction as part of its reliable renewables plan set for late May.
“We are getting on with the job of delivering practical solutions to keep the lights on for households and businesses using the cheapest, cleanest form of power – reliable renewable energy,” Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said.
“The rain doesn’t always fall, but we always have water on tap because we store it for when we need it – our energy plan does just the same thing for reliable renewables.
“Our plan is delivering the certainty and confidence the market needs to deliver the energy we need, when we need it.”
The Federal and NSW Governments have also signed a new deal to deliver more reliable renewables for NSW households and businesses, with at least 2.2 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy specifically for NSW, enough to power over 1 million households.
This national Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) tender will target 6 GW of new variable renewable energy projects for the National Electricity Market (NEM).
An allocation of 300 megawatts (MW) for variable renewable energy will also be exclusively dedicated to projects delivered in South Australia.
The NSW agreement builds on the success of the first CIS/NSW Roadmap pilot tender conducted in 2023, which is delivering six battery and virtual power plant projects with more than 1GW of capacity in NSW and creating 400 jobs.
The Governments are continuing to work closely together to advance a single combined tender process for generation infrastructure under the CIS and NSW Roadmap from November this year.
The inclusion of NSW projects in this first CIS tender will replace the scheduled Q2 2024 generation Long-Term Energy Service Agreements (LTESA) tender under the NSW Roadmap. Generation projects that are eligible for LTESA tenders will be eligible to participate in the CIS tender.
NSW will proceed with its scheduled Q2 2024 LTESA tender for long-duration storage infrastructure as well as processes to award access rights for NSW’s Central West Orana and South-West Renewable Energy Zones.
Both governments will continue to work together to finalise a Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement.
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