Australia politics live: renewables and batteries soar but ‘critical’ moment coming; WiseTech staff face AI redundancy

Australia has become a top-three global player in batteries, and renewable energy met nearly half of the nation’s power in 2025, but the Clean Energy Council has warned that progress could stall as investment in new wind and solar plummeted.

The industry’s annual snapshot found renewable energy supplied 43% of Australia’s power throughout 2025, up from 39% in 2024. The year ended on a high, with clean energy generating more than 50% of power in the national grid in the final quarter.

Australia ranked third in the world for utility-scale batteries, behind only China and the United States – with 2GW of large-scale battery capacity connected to the grid, up 233% on the previous year.

Yet despite these achievements, the CEC chief executive, Jackie Trad, said the energy transition was approaching a “critical juncture”.

double quotation markThe next five years matter most. Our sector’s highest priority in 2026 must be to remove the barriers slowing investment in new large-scale wind and solar projects that will ultimately replace unreliable coal generators that threaten the security of our energy system.

A 48% fall in new investment in onshore wind and solar signalled a likely slowdown. This was most evident for wind, with 0.9GW reaching financial close in 2025, compared with 2.2GW the previous year.

According to the report, rising inflation, regulatory bottlenecks, slow delivery of transmission and delayed coal closures contributed to weakening investor confidence.

Investment in battery storage remained strong. The uptake of home batteries surged 260%, compared with 2024, helped by the federal government’s cheaper home batteries program. More than 268,000 small-scale storage systems were added during 2025 – a number that has since grown to 400,000.