Australia has put up more than 4,700 wind turbines and, by the best available estimate, about a hundred million solar panels, and AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, says the large-scale part of that fleet must nearly triple in the next four years and grow fivefold by 2050.

The Scale

Electricity in 2025	Coal made 49.7 percent of Australia’s electricity. Wind, solar and hydro together made 43.2 percent. Coal outproduced every renewable source combined.
Large-scale wind and solar	23 gigawatts (8 Erarings) operating in the east-coast grid at the start of 2026. The plan calls for 61 gigawatts (+21 Erarings) by 2030 and 117 gigawatts (+40 Erarings) by 2050: nearly triple in four years, five times by mid-century. Much of this will need to be rebuilt every thirty years.
Against the measure	Every wind installation in the country together generated 2.7 Erarings in 2025. Every rooftop generated 2.4. Every grid-scale solar installation together generated 1.3. Coal generated 8.6.
The build rate	Closing the 2030 gap means installing about 8 gigawatts of new large-scale wind and solar per year, roughly 700 megawatts a month. In 2025, 3.4 gigawatts were switched on. The minister’s own arithmetic in 2022: “about forty 7-megawatt wind turbines every month” and “more than 22,000 five hundred-watt panels every day” until 2030.
Storage	Grid batteries on the east coast passed 9,000 megawatts in June 2026. The plan wants 33,000 megawatts by 2030, more than three times as much. Despite being more than 3 times the capacity of Eraring, average battery duration is just 2.4 hours. All of the battery output could replace Eraring for just 6.7 hours.
Transmission	About 6,000 kilometres of new high-voltage line by 2050, a 14 percent extension of a 44,000 kilometre network. At the tower spacing of current projects that is of the order of 13,000 new steel towers, each 45 to 76 metres tall (estimate).
The cost	AEMO puts the large-scale build at $106 billion in today’s dollars to 2050, and its own operating and fuel costs add $77 billion: $183 billion inside AEMO’s model before a household spends a cent on rooftop solar or home batteries. Outside estimates run from $642 billion to trillions, on wider bases set out below. No government has published a total for public money, and the Budget said the liability under its main underwriting scheme is “not for publication”.

What Is Operating

Wind: more than 4,700 turbines on about 90 sites, 15,381 megawatts. The count is a floor. No national turbine count has been published since 2020, so this one is compiled project by project.

Grid-scale solar: 115 installations totalling 13,043 megawatts. Based on the 1,833 to 2,200 panels per megawatt specified in New South Wales approvals over the past year, this equates to 24 to 29 million panels (estimate).

Rooftops: 4,501,887 small systems, 30.3 gigawatts, on more than one household in three. At an assumed average of 350 to 400 watts per panel across a fleet installed over 15 years, this is 75 to 90 million panels (estimate). More than 500,000 home batteries have been installed under the Cheaper Home Batteries program since July 2025.

Grid batteries: AEMO counts more than 9,000 megawatts in the east-coast grid. The register, which adds Western Australia, counts 50 batteries, 9,694 megawatts, holding 25,555 megawatt-hours. Charged full, with everything else switched off, they would carry the east-coast grid at its average demand for about an hour.

Pumped hydro: three schemes, 2,610 megawatts, the newest finished in 1984. Offshore wind: nil.

What Is Being Built

Ten wind installations, 420 turbines, 2,431 megawatts. Nine grid-scale solar installations, 2,551 megawatts. Eighteen batteries, 3,765 megawatts holding 14,591 megawatt-hours. Two pumped hydro schemes, Snowy 2.0 at 2,200 megawatts and Kidston at 250. Six transmission projects, 1,347 kilometres of new line. The Clean Energy Council’s wider count, which adds projects financed but not yet started, was 80 generation projects and 12.2 gigawatts at the end of 2025.

What Is Approved or Proposed

AEMO had 347 projects, 75 gigawatts, inside the four formal stages of grid connection in June 2026, 53 percent of it batteries. A further 492 projects, 196 gigawatts, sat at the enquiry stage before that, of which it expects one in four or five to proceed. The register’s own count of consents and proposals: 3,350 turbines, every one a maximum in a planning consent rather than a build; 88,722 megawatts of solar, of which 74,200 megawatts is development envelope rather than project; 29,596 megawatts of batteries; 12 pumped hydro schemes; six offshore areas covering 30,006 square kilometres with no commercial licence between them.

What AEMO Says Must Still Be Built

By 2030: 61 gigawatts of large-scale wind and solar, 38 more than today, and 33 gigawatts of batteries. By 2050: 117 gigawatts of large-scale wind and solar; 87 gigawatts on rooftops, nearly three times today’s 30, which at today’s average system of 10 kilowatts is about 5.5 million more roofs (estimate); 35 gigawatts of storage able to run for four to 12 hours and 5 gigawatts of deep storage from new pumped hydro; 17 gigawatts of gas; about 6,000 kilometres of transmission, of which 3,500 is already committed or anticipated. Most coal leaves by 2038 and all of it by 2049. The 2024 plan had said all coal out by 2038 and 10,000 kilometres of line.

What It Costs: The Estimates, Lowest to Highest

No single figure exists. The published estimates measure different things over different periods, separated here – that in itself is the problem.

AEMO, capital only	$106 billion to 2050, today’s dollars, annualised. Utility-scale generation, storage, firming and network in the east-coast grid. Excludes rooftop solar, home batteries and the distribution networks. The transmission inside it is $16 billion up front.
AEMO, capital plus running	$183 billion: the $106 billion plus the $77 billion AEMO states for operating and fuel costs over the same period.
Frontier Economics, real cost	$642 billion, July 2024 dollars, undiscounted, for 2024-25 to 2050-51: $580 billion of generation capital, operating, fuel and emissions costs plus $62 billion of transmission, modelled on AEMO’s 2024 plan. Excludes consumer resources and distribution. Prepared in consultation with the federal Coalition; AEMO and the Australian Energy Council disputed its basis.
Net Zero Australia, whole energy system	$7 trillion to $9 trillion of supply-side capital to 2060, 2020 dollars, undiscounted, for the domestic and export energy systems together, 65 to 77 percent of it clean electricity. In November 2025 the project’s own steering committee said the figures “are not indicative of ‘the cost of Australia reaching net zero emissions’” and put the incremental cost of domestic net zero at “approximately $300 billion”.
Public money, what is published	$20 billion of low-cost Commonwealth finance under Rewiring the Nation, $19 billion of it through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation; Snowy 2.0 at $12 billion, Commonwealth-owned; the Cheaper Home Batteries program, launched at $2.3 billion and now estimated at $7.2 billion; the first Renewable Energy Zone’s transmission at $5.5 billion, recovered from bills. The Centre for Independent Studies put the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the National Reconstruction Fund and Snowy 2.0 together at about $32.8 billion of public finance to 2028.
Public money, what is not	The Capacity Investment Scheme underwrites revenue for 15 years on projects the department values at $67 billion, 32 gigawatts. About 33.7 gigawatts has been selected across 109 projects in nine tenders. The Budget: the maximum liability and estimated payments “are not for publication due to commercial sensitivities”. The Parliamentary Budget Office: “unquantifiable”. The minister: it “could well be that it doesn’t cost the taxpayer a dollar”.

Private money in 2025: $4.4 billion reached financial close for 2.3 gigawatts of new wind and solar, one of the lowest years in a decade, and $4.8 billion for 4.3 gigawatts of batteries.

Technical material prepared for To Save a Beach and removed from the manuscript for length. Figures are as at August 2026. Where a figure is an estimate, the assumption is stated.

Australia’s renewable energy build: a national snapshot