BOTTLENECKS IN DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE

The Albanese government faces a delay of up to a decade to reach its 82 per cent renewable energy target, with developers unable to build enough green capacity in time as planning bottlenecks and approval lags stunt momentum.

Large-scale wind projects are taking eight years to develop, while solar farms are over five years on average, according to a report from Net Zero Australia – an expert group from the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland and Princeton University.

The short-term renewable energy pipeline needs to nearly double to be on track for net zero by 2050, according to the study, even as the scale of both wind and solar capacity continues to grow.

Federal Labor has an 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 as the centrepiece of its transition from a coal-based electricity system to a grid based on solar, wind and batteries backed up by hydro and gas.

Renewables’ share of generation in the national electricity market was just under 43 per cent in the September quarter, according to the Clean Energy Regulator’s Carbon Market Report. The Australian Energy Market Operator calculated some 50 gigawatts of projects were progressing through its connections process, up by a third in the last two years. However, moving that pipeline into live projects has proved more challenging faced with cost, planning, construction and investment hurdles. The operator of one of the world’s biggest batteries, the BlackRock-backed Akaysha Energy, said Australia would likely hit the 82 per cent target in 2034.

“Akaysha Energy’s modelling shows that we are currently off track to meet the 2030 82 per cent renewable energy target,” the company said in a report.

“To meet this, approximately 10GW of renewable capacity must be deployed annually for the next five years, compared to the 2–3GW average per year installed over the past five years. It is more likely that Australia will meet the target 4 years late – in 2034 after closing 11 coal plants across the national electricity market.”

Akaysha estimates Australia requires a lift in wind capacity from 14GW to 68GW, and from 20GW to 66GW for solar, and a seven-fold increase in energy storage capacity from 7GW to 52GW. The Net Zero Australia forecasts are based on current government policies and model the installation trend from 2018 through 2024 to estimate the likely rate of growth to reach the federal green goal.

“Investment and deployment is moving too slowly,” Net Zero Australia’s Michael Brear writes in The Australian. “Wind and solar build rates are plateauing and design and approvals have become a bottleneck, with the recently secured reforms to the EPBC Act hopefully going to help.”

A slab of new utility-scale battery supply has boosted the outlook, driven by federal Labor’s expanded Capacity Investment Scheme, while at a household level both rooftop solar and batteries are being installed at high rates and are on track to meet and potentially surpass net zero projections.

With rooftop solar added in, the CER estimates close to 7GW of renewable capacity will be added to the grid in 2025. The federal government has boosted its capacity investment scheme by a further 8 gigawatts to 40GW, amid warnings that not enough renewable-energy production will be built before big coal plants exit the power grid.

While the government credits the capacity investment scheme with unlocking billions of dollars in new investment, industry figures say it is no panacea. Developers still face surging construction costs, global turbine shortages and uneven planning processes – all factors that have slowed the rollout of new capacity.

The taxpayer-backed safety net is designed to de-risk investment in large-scale generation by guaranteeing a minimum “floor price” for power as pressure grows on federal Labor to deliver on its 2030 target. Although large-scale battery costs in the Asia Pacific region are forecast to hit record lows through to 2029, according to Wood Mackenzie, Australia’s high-cost market and supply-chain constraints dilute some of those cheaper prices. Regional opposition from landholders for the construction of transmission infrastructure has also picked up.

Net Zero Australia modelling shows absolute growth of about 100,000 workers is needed across the energy sector to 2050.

“This is significantly smaller than historical absolute growth in several other sectors over the last 25 years and leads to roughly a tripling of sectoral employment from today,” Mr Brear noted. “Whilst employment related to coal-fired power declines, jobs in renewables, gas-fired power, energy networks and others lead to net employment growth.”

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Adapted from an article first published in The Australian on 30 December 2025.