The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has released its 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) report, which identifies a clear pathway for maintaining reliable electricity supply across the National Electricity Market (NEM) over the next decade (AEMO report, 25/08/2026).
Each year, AEMO compares projected electricity supply and demand with reliability standards to assess whether sufficient resources are expected to be available as electricity demand increases and the power system continues to evolve.
Compared with last year’s assessment, the reliability outlook has improved, with no reliability gaps forecast before 2030. This improvement reflects the connection of a record 9.1 GW of new generation and storage capacity in 2025-26, as well as a 40 GW pipeline of committed and anticipated projects expected to be delivered by the early 2030s.
Over the next decade, approximately 15 GW of coal-fired and gas-fired power generation capacity is scheduled to retire, while electricity consumption is projected to rise by more than 40% as households, businesses and industry increasingly electrify and demand from data centres expands, according to the report.
"Beyond 2030, the next wave of investment will be critical to maintaining reliability, AEMO’s CEO said.
The 2026 ESOO also provides updated projections for data centre electricity demand. Consumption from data centres across the NEM is expected to rise from around 5 TWh in 2025-26 to 34 TWh by 2035-36, increasing their share of electricity supplied through the grid from approximately 3% to 13%.
According to our data, in 2025, power generation in Australia was primarily supplied by coal (43%), solar (19%), gas (17%), and wind (13%). Electricity consumption growth has accelerated since 2021, reaching 1.8%/year, compared with 0.8%/year between 2015 and 2021, and reaching 257 TWh in 2025. On the supply side, the sharp decline in coal’s share of the power mix, down 28 pp since 2010, has been offset by the combined increase in solar and wind, up 30 pp (Enerdata Global Energy Research).