Australia fast-tracks four big wind, solar and storage tenders in coming months to meet 2030 target

The Australian federal government says it plans to launch four new big tenders for wind, solar and storage in coming months as it works to ensure that enough capacity is delivered into the country’s main grids to meet its 2030 renewable energy target.

The four new tenders were revealed late Wednesday in a briefing note sent to the industry by the federal department of climate change, energy, efficiency and water.

It confirms energy minister Chris Bowen’s advice last month that the CIS tenders will be reconfigured to deliver a result within six months, rather than nine months previously, to ensure that projects are delivered on time.

See: Bowen says CIS tenders to be fast-tracked, new focus on local networks and grid bottlenecks

The CIS is designed to secure at least 23 gigawatts (GW) of new wind and solar capacity, and at least 9 GW (36 GWh) of dispatchable capacity, most likely battery storage in a series of auctions that began last year.

It is the flagship policy platform to help Australia reach its target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, around double its current share of renewables. Many in the industry believe that target will now be difficult to reach, but Bowen is still confident it can be done.

Others agree that enough capacity can be committed by that date, even if not all the projects are fully commissioned by that time, although the equation may change, with more solar and battery storage built as wind projects are proving slow to develop.

See: Australia may need twice as many big batteries to make up for lost wind

The new briefing from the federal government says two new tenders will be launched next month, in August, one for generation and one for dispatchable capacity and both focused on Western Australia.

A new tender for around 6 GW of new generation capacity in the National Electricity Market, the country’s main grid, will be launched in September, and another tender for dispatchable generation in the NEM will be launched in November.

The new market brief says the new tenders will be single-stage process rather than the two-stage process – bid and financial bid – for the tenders held to date.

“In future tenders, these two stages will be combined into a one-stage process. This means proponents will need to submit all aspects of their bid, including a full financial bid at the same time,” the briefing note said.

“The single stage process will reduce tender duration from approximately 9 to 6 months. Delivering tenders faster will ensure proponents have certainty of tender outcomes sooner.

“Concluding tenders within 6 months will also help to avoid overlapping tender rounds in future, ideally with proponents receiving notification of outcomes before a new tender round for the same technology commences.”

That last point is interesting as the current schedule is for the winners of Tender 4, the current 6 GW generation tender that is now open, are supposed to be announced in October, a month after the next generation tender is launched in September.

A six month process will avoid that overlap, which some say has created confusion and uncertainty for some aspiring project developers.

Bowen said last month that the first generation tender awarded more than 6.4 GW of new capacity after being flooded with more than 40 GW of project proposals.

He said he second tender, also for more than 6 GW of new wind and solar capacity, has also been well oversubscribed, with bids representing nearly 16.5GW of capacity.

“All jurisdictions are well represented in the bids, with around twice or more the target capacity for each jurisdictions under assessment.” he said.

ITK analyst and Energy Insiders podcast co-host David Leitch did his own sums this week on where the various projects that won the first tender have progressed to. See: The CIS dash to 23 gigawatts of wind and solar by 2030