New South Wales, Australia Plans to Tender for 1,500 MW of Peaking Power

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 13, the New South Wales state government of Australia announced the launch of a new round of preparatory work for peaking power procurement, planning to allocate 1,500 MW of new dispatchable generation capacity through competitive tendering, with priority given to projects such as natural gas peaking plants that can provide continuous power supply for at least 8 hours. The independent Consumer Trustee body ASL has released the 2026 Peaking Infrastructure Investment Target Report, with formal tendering planned to commence in early 2027, requiring winning projects to be completed and operational by the end of May 2033.

This procurement is organized by ASL and incorporated into the New South Wales Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap. According to the newly released investment target report, candidate projects must meet three technical requirements: providing net electricity during periods of system stress, providing generation capacity in response to dispatch instructions, and providing continuous power supply for no less than 8 hours. Compared with the previous minimum 2-hour peaking service requirement, this new round of procurement has raised the threshold for continuous power supply duration, and gas-fired generation facilities are expected to become one of the main competing project types.

ASL has simultaneously launched consultation on the Long-Term Energy Service Agreement (LTESA) product and tender design, seeking input from market participants on project eligibility, technical indicators, evaluation criteria, and contract mechanisms. The consultation period runs from October 13 to November 4, 2026, and the formal tender will determine final procurement conditions based on feedback. This new round of procurement is open to all types of projects that can meet the specified technical requirements and does not exclude all energy storage technologies.

This round of procurement corresponds to the potential electricity supply gap in the 2033–2034 financial year, involving power source configuration following the planned retirement of the Bayswater and Vales Point coal-fired power stations. The New South Wales energy department had previously commissioned ASL to develop the procurement plan and has implemented this plan separately from existing renewable energy, long-duration storage, and battery storage procurements. On February 18, 2026, ASL published the relevant tender preparation arrangements, and this time further clarified the capacity scale, continuous power supply requirements, and project delivery deadlines.

Data released by the New South Wales state government shows that the state's large-scale wind and solar installed capacity in operation has grown by more than 80% compared with when the current state government took office, energy storage installed capacity has expanded by approximately 39 times, and coal power's share of the state's electricity supply has dropped from more than 90% to 54%. The state government estimates that by 2050, gas-fired generation will account for approximately 3.9% of the state's electricity supply.