Australia rockets to third-largest big battery market in world, as solar and wind hit "decade low"

Australia has become the third-largest utility-scale battery market in the world, lagging behind only China and the United States, after a record 2 gigawatts of new big battery capacity was added around the country over the course of 2025 – a 233 per cent increase on 2024.

The Clean Energy Council’s Clean Energy Australia 2026 report, published Tuesday, details what was a “breakthrough year” for batteries – both big and small – in 2025, driven by surging investment, falling costs and supportive policy settings.

On the utility-scale side, the Clean energy Council (CEC) report says 12 new projects were added to the National Electricity Market (NEM) and Western Australia’s main grid, with a total capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) and a total energy storage duration of 5.1 gigawatt-hours.

The CEC tally includes the AGL Energy-owned 500 megawatt (MW), 1000 megawatt-hour (MWh) – or one gigawatt-hour – Liddell Battery, although the first stage of that project – 250 MW and 500 MWh – technically started its commissioning process at the start of this year.

Another major contributor to the national battery fleet in 2025 was the 600 MW and 1600 MWh first stage of the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH), jointly developed by Equis and the Victoria government-owned State Energy Corporation (SEC).