en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Australian Government has, for the first time, introduced dedicated reserved capacity for Indigenous communities in the 9th and 10th rounds of its Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) tenders, setting exclusive shares for a portion of the capacity targets in each round. Bidding projects must commit to Indigenous equity participation or benefit-sharing arrangements to be eligible.
In the 9th round, which seeks 5GW of renewable energy generation facilities from the National Electricity Market (NEM), 500MW of capacity is specifically reserved for projects meeting Indigenous eligibility criteria. The 10th round plans to procure 4GW of dispatchable power equipment (i.e., 16GWh of battery energy storage systems), with an additional 500MW/2GWh of storage capacity reserved under the same framework. This marks the first time Australia has set Indigenous-specific capacity for both generation and storage projects within the same tender round.
Bidders awarded reserved capacity must demonstrate a commitment to providing their Indigenous partners with at least a 5% equity stake or a share of project revenue. Participation in the reservation is voluntary; projects that do not participate or fail to meet the eligibility criteria can still be assessed under the standard tender process. All bidding projects are subject to the same qualification and merit criteria.
This pilot will be evaluated after the conclusion of the 9th and 10th rounds of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) tenders, and future tenders may be optimized based on the evaluation results. The Australian Government stated that this initiative is based on the rapid and large-scale development of renewable energy generation facilities and storage projects on Indigenous lands, aiming to enable Indigenous communities to share in the economic development benefits, rather than merely serving as "hosts" for infrastructure.
Since the inception of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) framework, Indigenous factors have been incorporated as a scoring criterion (merit criterion). To date, the scheme has completed eight tender rounds in the National Electricity Market (NEM) and two rounds in the Western Australian market, with cumulative procurement volumes growing significantly. According to previous reports, in the third round of dispatchable project tenders, bidders submitted a total of 135GWh of energy storage system applications against a target of 16GWh, demonstrating the ample scale of projects submitted by storage developers relative to available contract capacity. It is this competitive dynamic that has enabled the Australian Government to strengthen social and economic requirements without dampening market participation. In the 4th round, solar-plus-storage projects secured 11.4GWh of storage contracts, with three out of 20 winning projects committing to revenue sharing with Indigenous communities, while the remaining projects committed to subcontracting partnerships, training, and workforce development. In the 7th round, 19 projects were awarded (including 7.8GW of renewable energy generation facilities and 7.9GWh of battery energy storage systems), with total community benefit commitments related to Indigenous outcomes approaching AUD 1.2 billion (approximately USD 830 million).
The shift from using Indigenous outcomes as a scoring bonus to specifically reserving capacity for winning projects marks a structural upgrade in how the Australian Government leverages procurement frameworks to drive tangible results—rather than merely rewarding outcomes after they occur. The design of the reservation mechanism addresses the issue that community benefit commitments are often treated as "add-ons" rather than "core elements" in competitive tenders. Storage projects included in the reservation scope must still meet the same technical and financial qualification standards as other bidders in the 10th round, including demonstrating a viable commercial operational pathway. The registration deadline for the 10th round tender is August 4, 2026, with the Q&A session continuing until August 11, 2026.
