CANBERRA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- A record-breaking surge in Australia's renewable energy capacity has reduced the threat of blackouts as coal-fired power stations are shut down, the market operator said in a new report.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on Thursday published the 2025 edition of its annual Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) report, which provides a 10-year outlook on the reliability of the National Electricity Market (NEM).
The report said that a record-high 4.4 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy generation and storage capacity was brought online in the NEM during the financial year 2024-25, compared to the average of 3.2 GW that was brought online in the previous three years.
Additionally, the report forecasts that between 5.2 GW and 10.1 GW of generation and storage capacity will come online in each of the next five years.
It said that the new capacity will help offset planned retirements over the next 10 years of predominantly coal-fired power stations that currently supply a combined 11 GW of electricity to the NEM.
"The 10-year investment pipeline to manage energy reliability is healthy," AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said in a statement.
"Considering the large volume of generation retirements over the next decade, the timely delivery of new generation, storage and transmission, along with the operation of consumer energy resources to support reliability, remain critical."
The NEM facilitates the exchange of electricity between generators and retailers in six of Australia's eight states and territories, with both Western Australia and the Northern Territory having their own systems.
AEMO said in its report on Thursday that the increase in renewable generation and storage capacity has closed forecast reliability gaps in Australia's two most populous states of New South Wales in 2027-28 and Victoria in 2028-29 when major coal-fired plants are set to shut down.
However, it said that a small reliability risk remains for the northeast state of Queensland for the upcoming summer due to project delays and forecast elevated demand and for South Australia (SA) in 2026-27 due to delays in building a major transmission link and the closure of a gas-fired power station.
It said that the forecast reliability gap in SA did not factor in a recent agreement between the gas plant operator and the state government to potentially extend its operating lifespan by two years. ■
