Two pumped-storage hydropower projects, Sunshine Hydro’s Djandori (1,398 MW) and Hydro Tasmania’s Cethana (750 MW), have been submitted for approval under Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act (Australian Government, 16/01/2026).
The Djandori project, developed by Sunshine Hydro and located in the Central Queensland Region comprise six reversible pump-turbine units rated 233 MW each and two reservoirs totalling 51 gigalitres of water storage. In addition, Hydro Tasmania’s Cethana (750 MW) project would provide 20 hours of storage using Lake Cethana as the lower reservoir and a new 12.4-mcm upper reservoir.
The two projects aims to deliver energy storage and assists Australia’s transition to renewable energy, providing a replacement for coal-fired plants which are due to be retired. The country has currently only 810 MW of pumped storage capacity (at end-2024), according to Enerdata’s Global Energy & CO2 Data (GED). Around 12 GW of pumped hydro storage projects are currently under development, according to Enerdata’s Power Plant Tracker (PPT) including 1.2 GW in the bidding process and 2 GW of already authorised.
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