Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, announced an expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) on Monday, with upcoming tenders set to offer 4 GW of dispatchable power and 6 GW of renewable generation. This marks an increase from the original plans, which aimed for 2 GW of dispatchable renewable power and 4 GW of renewable energy generation.
The total of 10 GW of new energy will be tendered over the coming months, with an expected delivery by December 2029. Bowen stated that market briefs would be released soon, and the tender process will open in mid-November.
Speaking at the Australian Financial Review's summit in Sydney, Bowen highlighted the success of the CIS, which aims to deliver an additional 32 GW of capacity by 2030. He noted that a recent 600-MW pilot auction for batteries in Victoria and South Australia was massively oversubscribed, while the first national tender for 6 GW of variable generation received 40 GW of bids.
“We are yet to award the winners of this auction, but I have received advice from my department that the quality of the projects is very strong,” Bowen stated. “Accordingly, I am pleased to announce today that we have decided to make the next round of auctions bigger than originally envisaged to get more of these high-quality projects connected to the grid more quickly.”
