The Australian government has announced that it will launch a 6GW renewable energy tender in May 2024, which will be the country's largest single renewable energy tender to date, to procure new renewable energy capacity for the National Electricity Market (NEM). Of this, at least 2.2GW of capacity will be reserved for New South Wales (NSW) and 300MW will be reserved for South Australia.

Details of the tender process will be released by the government in early May 2024, with plans to conduct tenders in the NEM every six months until 2027.

This is the first tender in the Australian Federal Government's plan to auction 32GW of dispatchable and variable capacity through the Capacity Investment Program (CIS) by 2030, with a target of 82% renewable energy by 2030.

New South Wales will be the biggest beneficiary of the federal tender, with the state going ahead with the Long Term Energy Services Agreement (LTESA) tender for energy storage infrastructure and planning to auction rights of way for the Central West Orana and South West Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) in the second quarter of 2024.

The Australian Clean Energy Council (CEC) described the announcement as one of the most significant policy commitments to renewable energy in Australia's history. "Clean energy investors are pleased to see this progress and the commencement of the process will finally give the project the revenue certainty needed for the large number of renewable energy projects Australia needs," CEC acting chief executive ArronWood said. Editor/Wang Tian