CSIRO recently published its GenCost 2025-26 report, estimating the cost of various electricity technologies. This year’s report echoed the findings of the last few years, with solar PV and onshore wind shown to be the lowest cost new build technologies.
This year, as a new, secondary step – distinct from GenCost’s long running technology cost estimates – CSIRO modelled overall system costs across five scenarios, defined by 2050 electricity sector emissions intensity.
Only one, NoProgressToNetZero, is anchored to the emissions intensity consistent with Australia’s 2030 82% renewables target; the other four are scaled to progressively greater consistency with net zero by 2050.
NoProgressToNetZero does not represent “no action”: it still reaches 70% renewables, 19% gas and 11% coal by 2050, a substantial transition from today. Across all scenarios, deploying solar PV, wind, gas and storage for the majority of generation was found to be the least-cost 2050 option.
One result of the CSIRO modelling was that electricity system costs could be 5% lower in NoProgressToNetZero than in the next-least-ambitious scenario.
