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Last quarter of 2025 saw record-breaking renewable energy added to grid

Petra Stock

Record-breaking amounts of new wind, solar and storage were added to Australia’s electricity grid in the final quarter of 2025, enough new renewables to power Brisbane 1.5 times over.

After a slower start, the year culminated in a rush, with nine wind and solar farms – 2.1GW in all – brought online in the final three months. The result outperformed all previous quarters, breaking the previous record of 1.3GW added in the third quarter of 2021, according to the Clean Energy Council’s latest quarterly investment report.

Four new utility-scale batteries were deployed in Q4 – totalling 1GW/2.3GWh – tripling the record set in the previous quarter (Q3 2025). The largest was Victoria’s Melbourne renewable energy hub with a size of 600MW/ 1,600MWh.

The CEC chief executive, Jackie Trad, described the result as an “Aussie first” that coincided with renewable energy supplying more than half of grid electricity for the first time.

The final quarter of last year saw many new renewables records broken. Sixty-three per cent of total renewable generation capacity that was switched on in 2025 was delivered in Q4.

The seasonal rush to close out on projects before years’ end, together with more political stability in the second half of 2025, ended the year on a stronger note than where it started. However, there is still much work to be done to accelerate future investment in large-scale generation.

Overall the year ended on a high, with 3.3GW of renewable energy brought online. That made 2025 the second largest year for new projects commissioned after 2021. More battery storage was added in 2025, than the previous eight years combined.