Tuesday, 25 August 2026

Australia has roughly 40 GW of grid-scale renewable generation and energy storage moving through its development pipeline, according to pv magazine, citing AEMO. That total sits against a NEM capacity of 77 GW today, with about 24 GW of the pipeline newly committed or anticipated.

The pipeline is building ahead of a large fleet exit. About 15 GW of coal and gas generation is scheduled to retire over the next decade, pv magazine reported.

AEMO Chief Executive Officer Daniel Westerman said the reliability outlook has improved relative to last year's report, with no forecast reliability gaps identified before 2030, according to pv magazine.

Connection rates have accelerated. Approximately 9.1 GW of new capacity reached full output in the NEM over the past year, which pv magazine reported as a new annual record and more than double the previous year's connection rate.

Behind the meter, more than 2.4 GW / 7.4 GWh of household batteries have been added to the grid since 1 July 2025, per pv magazine.

Demand-side pressure is coming from computing load. The number of proposed data centres seeking to connect to the NEM has more than doubled over the past year, rising from 97 to 225, according to pv magazine.

That queue translates into a steep consumption curve. Data centre electricity use on the NEM is forecast to rise from about 5 TWh today to 34 TWh in 2035-36, lifting the segment's share of grid-supplied electricity from roughly 3% to about 13%, pv magazine reported.

The scale comparison matters for the retirement schedule: the 40 GW of committed and anticipated capacity is more than half the existing 77 GW of NEM capacity, while the plant set due to close over the coming decade amounts to 15 GW. Household batteries add a distributed layer on top of that grid-scale build, with the 7.4 GWh installed since 1 July 2025 dispatchable behind the meter.

None of seven active battery energy storage sites inspected in Norway met the NFPA 855 requirement for 0.9 meters of spacing between units, a distance intended to limit fire spread between modules, according to ESS News.

The inspections were carried out under SafeBESS, a research project funded by the Research Council of Norway, ESS News reported. Researchers visited seven active battery sites, reviewing documentation and reports alongside building owners and facility representatives.

The sites were located in Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim, and ranged from kindergartens to offices, per ESS News. Installed capacity spanned 41 kWh to 450 kWh.

Detection and mitigation equipment varied sharply across the sample. ESS News reported that one site had gas detectors and two had explosion control, while six relied on smoke detectors. On spacing, the audit found no site in full compliance with the 0.9 meter separation set out in NFPA 855.

Four of the installations, listed by the researchers as Cases 4, 5, 6, and 7, used repurposed Nissan Leaf batteries.

The researchers point to Norway's performance-based regulations, combined with limited knowledge of the fire and explosion hazards associated with lithium-ion batteries, as a likely cause of the wide divergence in safety measures between sites, according to ESS News. Performance-based rules set an outcome to be achieved rather than a prescriptive specification such as a fixed clearance between battery modules, leaving the interpretation to designers and owners.

NFPA 855 is a standard for the installation of stationary energy storage systems. Its 0.9 meter spacing clause addresses propagation between modules, the mechanism by which a thermal runaway event in one unit can cascade into neighbours. Smoke detection, which six of the seven sites had, responds to combustion; gas detection, present at one site, targets the flammable vent gases released by a cell before open flame.

Swiss energy company Alpiq has bought Eco Power One GmbH, the project company holding the 103 MW/238 MWh Bollingstedt battery energy storage system in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, from developer Eco Stor, according to ESS News.

Operational responsibility does not move with the ownership. Eco Stor stays in charge of technical and operational management of the 103 MW/238 MWh battery, ESS News reported.

The utility-scale site has been running since June 2025, per the same report.

Grid access at Bollingstedt rests on an arrangement Eco Stor describes as one of Germany's first flexible connection agreements for battery storage, concluded with grid operator Schleswig-Holstein Netz. Flexible connection agreements let a project connect on terms that allow the operator to limit injection or withdrawal under defined grid conditions, rather than waiting for firm capacity to be built out.

The two companies had already been working together. At the end of 2025, Alpiq and Eco Stor announced a cooperation on the Schuby battery storage project and signed a tolling agreement, ESS News reported. Under a tolling structure, the offtaker directs dispatch and takes the market risk while the asset owner is paid a fee for converting that instruction into stored and discharged energy.

The Bollingstedt deal converts that trading-side relationship into direct ownership of an operating asset, with the developer retained as operator.