Its report coincided with the WA government laying out more details on its planned energy transition and Western Power issuing grid connection offers to battery storage projects.
The CSIRO has found that wind farms and solar farms backed by storage and transmission upgrades remain the lowest-cost source of new electricity generation in Australia.
Its report coincided with Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson laying out more details on the planned energy transition away from coal.
She spoke today at an event to mark the start of construction on the expansion of the Warradarge wind farm in the Mid West.
The minister said Warradarge was among 9,800 megawatts of renewable energy, storage and gas projects that will provide the power required by 2029-30 to support the closure of coal-fired power stations in Western Australia.
The new capacity includes about 1,000MW of grid-scale battery storage projects being built by Synergy, Neoen, Alinta and Atmos Renewables and Strike Energy’s gas projects.
The balance is expected to come largely from unnamed private sector projects, as discussed below.
The new capacity will largely take the place of the two largest state-owned coal-fired power stations (Muja D and Collie), which have a capacity of about 750MW combined.
The ‘extra’ investment needed in future reflects the inherently unreliable and coincident nature of renewable energy.
The CSIRO costings were released in its 2024-25 GenCost Report, prepared in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and using capital cost estimates from consulting firm Aurecon.
After renewables, gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS) and large-scale nuclear are the next lowest cost options.
CSIRO said that, as neither was currently deployed for electricity generation in Australia, they could be subject to longer lead times and first-of-a-kind premiums.
Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) remain the highest-cost option.
CSIRO said its report included new data from Canada’s recently completed Darlington nuclear project.
This project represented the first commercial-scale benchmark from a western country and fell within the range previously projected by GenCost.
The CSIRO report revised up its cost projections for most technologies, despite continued declines in solar PV and battery costs.
It attributed the revision to sustained increases in Australian construction costs, the inclusion of work camp costs for future wind projects and an increase in capital financing rates.
Within this overall trend, it found the cost of solar PV and grid-scale batteries has fallen after large cost spikes following COVID-era supply chain issues but the cost of onshore wind continues to rise.
The COVID-led cost increases averaged 20 per cent in 2022-23 but were largest for onshore wind (up 35 per cent).
The capital cost of onshore wind generation technology has increased by a further 8 per cent in 2023-24 and 6 per cent in 2024-25
In contrast, the cost of large-scale solar PV has fallen by 8 per cent in both years.
Large-scale battery costs improved the most, falling by 2 per cent in 2023-24 and 20 per cent in 2024-25.
Gas turbine technologies are still increasing but this is because the GenCost is now including hydrogen fuel readiness as a standard feature.
Meanwhile, the state government has officially marked the start of earthworks at the $400 million expansion of the Warradarge wind farm near Eneabba.
Minister Sanderson said the project represented a significant contribution to renewable power generation in WA.
“This project along with other grid-scale wind and solar farms and big batteries will enable us to exit coal by 2030 - faster than any other State,” she said.
“Relying on coal-fired power generation no longer makes sense - economically or environmentally.”
The expansion will see an extra 30 wind turbines being erected, adding to 51 turbines operating since 2020.
The 30 new wind turbines will be capable of providing 103 MW of wind energy, lifting Warradarge’s total capacity to 283 MW, making it the biggest wind farm in WA.
The minister noted that Synergy has contributed just $28.8 million to the expansion of Warradarge, which is 80 per cent-owned by private company Potentia Energy.
That number implies the project owners have taken on substantial extra debt to fund the project.
Warradarge is one of just two wind farm projects under construction in southern WA.
The second is Synergy’s $424 million, 105 MW King Rocks wind farm in the eastern wheatbelt.
Many other project proponents are aiming to build wind farms and solar farms in WA but are waiting for more certainty from offtake customers, the government and Western Power, which manages the transmission network.
Western Power’s Executive Manager Energy Transition and Sustainability Matt Cheney signalled today the government utility was making progress.
“Over the past year, we have been building a clearer picture of where renewable investment is likely to occur, future load forecasts, and project readiness,” he said.
“Looking ahead Western Power’s pipeline of connection-ready projects as of June 2025 is 12.81 gigawatts.”
He announced today that Western Power has issued network connection offers to seven new generation projects in 2024/25 including battery energy storage systems (BESS) and wind and solar farms.
They will bring an additional 759MW of energy onto the SWIS network.
However, Western Power named just two of these projects.
One was the 100 MW Merredin BESS, jointly developed by Nomad Energy and Atmos Renewables.
The developers awarded a $65 million construction contract for this project to Perth firm GenusPlus back in June, with the works subject to financial close.
The second was Frontier Energy’s Waroona Renewable Energy Project, which comprises a 120 MW solar array and an 80 MW battery.
