Edition 7 · 11 July 2026 · 5 min read
AEMO dropped the final 2026 Integrated System Plan on 25 June, and I've spent the fortnight reading past the headline. Almost every write-up led with the same figure: 120 GW of utility-scale wind and solar by 2050, five times what we have now, at $106 billion under its Step Change scenario. Those are real numbers. They're also the wrong ones to fixate on if you're buying energy over the next four years.
The Take: the number that actually sets your forward curve
The ISP needs about 18 GW of large-scale wind built by 2030 to hold the 82% renewables target, and only about half of that is visible to AEMO in the connections pipeline today (RenewEconomy, 25 June). Storage is racing ahead and solar is everywhere. Wind is the piece running late, held back by rising costs, social licence fights, connection queues, and a cooler government appetite in Queensland.
This matters to a commercial buyer for a specific reason. Solar floods the middle of the day and drives prices to zero or below. Wind runs into the evening and overnight, when solar is gone and demand is still high. When the wind build lags, the system doesn't fill the gap with more panels. It leans on gas firming and keeps ageing coal online longer than the plan assumes, and AEMO's optimal path already carries 17 GW of flexible gas for exactly that reason.
That gas is what ends up in your contract price. Forward curves are set by the tight evening and winter periods, priced off gas and coal availability, so the slower the wind build, the longer your curve stays tethered to fuel costs you can't control. AEMO was blunt about the tail: if offshore wind slips three years and transmission lags, we reach only about 75% renewables by 2030 and system costs rise by more than the assumed 30% jump in capital. So here's what I'd do with that if I were signing in the next 18 months: treat the evening and Q3 blocks as the exposure that matters, question any quote that prices them off a smooth renewables ramp, and lean toward firmed or shorter-dated cover until the wind pipeline actually fills. Wind is the number I'd track, because it decides how long gas keeps setting the price you pay after dark.
Quick Hits
CIS Tender 8 landed, and it was all batteries. The latest Capacity Investment Scheme round awarded 15 storage projects totalling 4.2 GW and 16.1 GWh, all due online by the end of 2029 (energy-storage.news). So what: the connections queue holds far more storage than will ever be built, and even the ISP's 35 GW short and medium-duration target is well covered by projects already moving. Storage isn't the gap. Generation is. Every tender that fills up with batteries and no new wind widens the exact hole the ISP just flagged.
The 1 July retail reforms are now live. Retailers can raise prices only once a year, late-payment fees are banned, every customer gets a fee-free payment option, and the Solar Sharer offer went live alongside Default Market Offer cuts of up to 21% for NSW small businesses (DCCEEW). So what: these protections stop at small customers and do not touch commercial contracts, but the direction of travel is set. Fair-pricing expectations built for households have a way of becoming the baseline everyone is measured against.
Rooftop solar is now the biggest single source in the mix. Rooftop solar supplied 16% of the NEM in Q1, ahead of grid-scale solar, wind and hydro for the first time (AEMO). So what: the daytime surplus keeps deepening, which is the strongest argument yet that the next unit of value is not another panel. It is something that can move energy into the evening, whether that is a battery on your site or a wind farm that has not been built.
From the blog
If the firming angle is new to you, edition 6 is worth a look. I wrote about South Australia running short of reserve on a winter morning and why reliability has become an hours-and-fuel problem rather than a peak-demand one. The wind shortfall in this edition is the supply-side reason that problem is not going away. Read edition 6.
The Sign-Off
Here's the question I'm sitting with: if wind is the constraint and everyone can see it in the ISP, why is the market still pricing storage risk harder than generation risk? My guess is that storage is legible and generation is political, but I'd rather hear yours.
If this was useful, forward it to someone who signs energy contracts. And if you've got a read on the wind pipeline I'm missing, just reply. I read every one.
Until next fortnight,
Cohen
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