E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
FREMANTLE, WA
2 MAY 2026
Subjects: Capacity Investment Scheme in Western Australia, Fremantle Prison
SIMONE MCGURK, STATE MEMBER FOR FREMANTLE: Good morning everyone. I’m here with the federal member for Fremantle, Josh Wilson, who’s the Assistant Minister for Energy and Climate Change, and my colleague, Amber-Jade Sanderson, who’s the State Minister for Energy and Decarbonisation. They’re here to make an important announcement about climate change and the energy transformation. And of course, Fremantle is the perfect place to do that announcement. This is a community that knows a lot about the impacts of climate change and our need to address it. It also understands that as a state and as a country, we need to address our climate change by transforming our energy industry, and that’s a challenging and big task, and that Labor is up to that. That’s not only important to address climate change, but it’s also important for energy security and for energy affordability, and that’s why the announcement you’re about to hear is significant. Before I hand over to Josh, I do want to just take the opportunity while I’ve got a few cameras in front of me to say that we also made a very important announcement this morning, $3 million to the Fremantle Prison, which will bring our total commitment to conservation works to the important World Heritage-listed site to just over $20 million – it’s really significant. It’s an important asset that our community has and that our state has that recognises our convict heritage and our built heritage. So I’m very proud of that announcement. I’ll hand to Josh.
JOSH WILSON: Thanks, Simone. Good morning, everyone. Kaya. It’s great to be here in Fremantle at Monument Hill on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, particularly with two of my very good friends, Simone McGurk, my fellow member for Fremantle and Amber-Jade Sanderson, West Australia’s Energy Minister. We are making a really big announcement today with the outcomes of the Capacity Investment Scheme tenders number five and number six. In essence, today, we’re announcing 10 projects that represent one of the largest steps forward in terms of energy capacity in Western Australia’s history, and they enable us to take a really big step forward on our path towards being a renewable energy superpower to the cleaner and cheaper energy system that all Australians deserve, and in this case, obviously assisting the remarkable work that the Cook Labor Government has been doing over a number of years in transforming one of the largest standalone energy systems in the world, the SWIS and the NWIS, or the WEM, the Western Australian Energy Market, which is not part of the east coast energy system and has some challenges as a result. Today’s announcement will deliver 10 new projects – seven generation projects and three dispatchable storage projects – that will power more than a million Western Australian homes and provide enough dispatchable four hour battery energy to support 400,000 homes. A really remarkable step forward as we move towards our potential, our destiny as a self-sufficient, cleaner and cheaper energy system, moving away from fossil fuels as we reduce emissions and tackle dangerous climate change.
It’s really heartening that both of these tenders were significantly oversubscribed. It’s really heartening that, as a result, we’ve been able to choose projects that deliver more than what we sought. In the case of the generation piece, tender five, instead of the 1.6 gigawatts, we’re delivering nearly 1.9 gigawatts. In terms of the dispatchable energy tender, three projects that instead of delivering 2,400 megawatt hours, we’re delivering 3,600 megawatt hours, a more than 50% increase on what we sought and, again, that will power more than a million Western Australian homes and provide that dispatchable four-hour battery support for up to 400,000 homes. What’s more, $5 billion of investment in WA, all of the economic benefits that that will bring – 7000 jobs in the life of delivering these projects out to 2030, and then 500 ongoing jobs. Very, very significant additional benefits – $150 million worth of benefits to First Nations communities, $75 million worth of benefits in broader communities, opportunities like jobs and traineeships and all those kinds of things, and a significant focus on Australian manufacturing and local content, $22 million worth of Australian steel as part of those projects.
Taken all together, it represents this big, categorical step forward in Western Australia’s energy future as part of the work we’re doing nationally. And of course, the Albanese Government through the Capacity Investment Scheme, Rewiring Australia, energy market reforms, Cheaper Home Batteries, all of these things are making sure that we get to achieve our potential and our destiny as a renewable energy superpower. And I know that Australians and Western Australians and people in my community of Fremantle take heart from all of the indicators of that progress. Last year, in September, of course, renewables out-generated coal for an entire month for the first time, and then in October, we did it again. Over the summer, we had a warm summer, we saw the largest ever electricity demand across Australia, but we handled that well in a stable fashion because of the surge in new renewables and the surge in new dispatchable energy. Thanks to the policies and programs of the Albanese Government and the partnerships that we’ve formed with leading progressive state governments, particularly here in Western Australia, we saw in the latest AEMO quarterly report that renewables as a proportion of energy Australia wide have gone north of 46% we’re seeing downward pressure on wholesale prices, we’ve seen Cheaper Home Batteries add 10 gigawatt hours (GWh) of new dispatchable energy in just nine months of operation, and in something that I know younger people in particular will find really encouraging, we saw coal as a contributor to our energy system, fall to the lowest level on record. So, we are seeing coal-fired power play a smaller and smaller part in our energy system. We saw the contribution that gas makes fall back to the level that was last achieved in 1999. So that progress that Australians expect to see from the national government, from the Albanese Government, in partnership with the Western Australian government, is occurring. We are seeing more and more renewables and dispatchable energy, we are seeing less and less fossil fuel energy as part of our energy system, and the announcement we make today is a further big milestone step in that direction, to say more about the circumstance in Western Australia, which is a distinctive jurisdiction with some distinctive challenges, and is making remarkable progress already, the leading battery jurisdiction in Australia, already a jurisdiction that has made the clearest progress towards exiting coal fired power. Very happy to hand over to my friend and colleague, Minister Sanderson.
AMBER-JADE SANDERSON: Thanks, Josh. The Cook Government strongly welcomes this historic investment in renewable energy from the Albanese Government, this Capacity Investment Scheme investment across a range of renewable energy and battery storage projects, will support those projects to be online before we exit coal in 2030. It demonstrates that stable policy and strong partnerships deliver really important investment in jobs and energy in Western Australia. We made a decision as a state government back in 2022 to exit state-owned coal-fired power stations. As a result of that, we’re undertaking the biggest grid expansion that the grid has ever seen. We’re investing record amounts in renewable energy, and the partnership with the Albanese Government will deliver more renewable energy into our system and lower bills. Ultimately, we know that the cheapest mix for renewable for energy costs is renewable energy backed by storage, and that is the mix that we’re working to. As Josh has outlined, the last quarterly report showed that our system was already on 46% renewable energy, reliance on coal is down to its lowest levels ever. The community expect a well-managed, sensible transition out of coal and into renewable energy with prioritiSing reliability, security and affordability, and that is exactly what we’re doing with our partnership with the Albanese government
WILSON: Happy to take any questions on the project.
REPORTER: Minister, how did you choose these locations?
WILSON: So ASL (AusEnergy Services Ltd) has the responsibility within the Capacity Investment Scheme system of providing advice according to the merit criteria. Obviously, we have targets in terms of both the generation and the dispatchable part. As I mentioned before, we wanted 1.6 gigawatts. We’re getting 1.9 GW. We wanted 2,400 megawatt hours of storage or dispatchable energy. We’re getting 3,600 megawatt hours. But the criteria do also include the viability of the proponents and their proven experience, but also the contributions that they are looking to make in terms of those broader community benefits, opportunities for First Nations Australians, the incorporation of Australian made products and manufacturing inputs.
REPORTER: You mentioned that the tender had been significantly oversubscribed.
WILSON: I’m at risk of getting this slightly wrong. I think we had 15 applications in Tender 5, which was the generation part of the tender process, and then 10 for Tender 6. So 15 for Tender 5 five, from which we chose seven, and then 10 from Tender 6, from which three were chosen. As part of the tender process, we asked proponents to describe the nature of the project and the things that they will deliver as part of that, obviously, the merit criteria are clear, so it’s understood that those things make up a significant part of the consideration. Australia wide, now we’ve chosen 65 projects have been chosen under the Capacity Investment Scheme that will deliver more than $1 billion in community benefits, in addition to the benefits that are focused on First Nations economic participation and the opportunities for local manufacturing. So, the outcomes of the CIS Tenders five and six will be $150 million worth of benefits for First Nations Australians, $75 million in broader community benefits, $22 million specifically for Australian steel.
REPORTER: Will these projects be delivered in time to replace that [inaudible]
WILSON: Well, we are confident because of the rigour that’s involved in the process, but we’re also confident based on past experience. And you know, the Western Australian Government has actually shown over the last several years exactly how to manage that sensible transition. The deployment of big batteries already in Western Australia makes it the leading battery jurisdiction in the country. The outcome that Minister Sanderson just mentioned, with getting to 46% renewables, and the spot records for WA lead the nation to, at various times over the summer, we were getting 90% of the energy used here in the SWIS from renewables. And then we see things like Cheaper Home Batteries, which in Western Australia works well with the West Australian Government’s battery rebate. So, you’re getting that kind of additional change, which we were always optimistic about, but frankly, has occurred in a way that is significantly better than anyone would have anticipated. To go from a program that started on the first of July to see more than 350,000 Australian households take up a Cheaper Home Battery, and then to get that aggregate dispatchable energy 10 gigawatt hours, as Minister Bowen is fond of saying, that represents multiple big batteries worth of storage, and as AEMO and the market regulators have observed, it’s actually making a systemic difference in in bringing prices down. The last AEMO report showed that batteries as a source of power are actually dictating the spot price in the market more than any other source of energy, and it is the fastest.
REPORTER: What’s that?
WILSON: It’s the source of energy that’s growing the fastest as we make this transition. So, these are things that we should all take with a great deal of encouragement. It doesn’t mean that there’s not a fair bit further to go. And of course, if you want to make the change that we are involved in delivering the greatest industrial change that Australia has experienced in a long time, certainly in the 21st Century, what you need is a sustained, focused, hard-working government, and that is supplied by the Albanese Labor Government, and certainly by the Labor Government here in Western Australia.
REPORTER: What is the life of the of the projects?
WILSON: It’ll vary, but the projects will all be delivered by 2030 and they have different kind of delivery timeframes. Some will come on sooner, and some will come on later. You know, wind farms have a have a life that you can judge, I guess, according to the turbines themselves. But in some ways, we’ll often say about a wind farm that it might have a 12-to-15-to-18-year life, but that’s only because at some point you’ll need to upgrade that infrastructure. I mean, wind will be blowing forever, and the sun will be shining for a long time. I don’t want to say forever, because I’ll get some emails from a physicist that will tell me that in 30,000 billion years, the sun will blink out. But, in the main, the reason we are so keen on renewable energy is because it’s not finite. It is incredibly cheap. It’s entirely within our own control, and it will be the basis of a much stronger future for all Australians.
REPORTER: Will these new projects have more energy than the Muja power station?
WILSON: Yes, in aggregate, yes. You’re testing my on the spot maths, but significantly more than Muja. I mean the energy transition, as I think all Australians understand, does mean moving from both different sources of energy production, but also a different arrangement of our system as a whole, a distributed and multi directional system that Australians are experiencing. We are the largest penetration distributed energy nation in the world. One in three Australian households have home solar and in some places, like WA, it’s pretty much two in five. And so rather than having a circumstance where we generated energy at a couple of locations using fossil fuels, we now generate energy and store energy right across our communities. That means that Australians and Australian businesses have a have a piece of that enterprise and the most significant aspect of that for households, particularly at the moment, is that it makes their lives a lot cheaper, a lot more affordable. Australians who have, and businesses that have, been able to invest in solar and storage and electric vehicles or electrified transport experience almost immediately the significant cost benefits that come from that. And the good thing is that those cost benefits are shared, so even households that, at this point in time, might not have solar or batteries actually benefit from the systemic cost reductions that come from this transition. Over the summer, we’ve started to see the evidence of that with a significant decrease in wholesale prices.
SANDERSON: On the Muja question, the two state-owned coal-fired power stations – Muja and Collie together – if they were running at full pelt, which is very, very rare these days, if that was about 800 megawatts. This is more than double that. So, this investment will unlock more than double that capacity. But it is important to understand as well that Muja and Collie are also increasingly on unplanned outages. They have very, very aging infrastructure, are at the end of their technical life, and are being used less and less every day.
REPORTER: Once all of these new projects come online, what percentage of energy will be renewable?
SANDERSON: Well, by 2030 we’ll be at about 80% so if these projects come online, which we’re confident that they will with this investment. This investment from the Commonwealth, also with the long-term power purchase agreements, that Synergy has already entered into, and it’s imminent second round of long-term power purchase agreements. By exiting coal in 2030 we’ll be at about 80% renewable energy on our system, backed by gas peaking and long-term storage with batteries.
REPORTER: And when can a home see the benefits to their bills?
SANDERSON: Well, for West Australians, the state government has always shielded households from those sharp bill increases because we own Synergy, and we always keep those bill increases below CPI, so we are always subsidising and will continue to subsidise household bills for West Australian households. The sector that will benefit most from the downward pressure on wholesale prices is industry. Maintaining a reliable and affordable energy system is key to growing jobs in Western Australia and making more things in WA. What we’ve heard from industry consistently is that energy competitiveness is one of the key considerations when starting or expanding their businesses. So, by keeping these prices down, by expanding our renewable energy, we’re not only creating more jobs and a supply chain and making more things here, we’re actually creating an environment where we can get more investment and more jobs by keeping energy prices low for
REPORTER: Would you mind elaborating on the Fremantle Prison?
MCGURK: Fremantle Prison is World Heritage-listed asset that we have in Fremantle. It’s the only built heritage asset in the state that has that world-class, high level of protection and recognition. And since coming to government, we’ve invested nearly $20 million dollars into conservation works. You can imagine, the buildings date back to 1850, they’re made of limestone. They’re very fragile, and so there is a lot of work. It’s a massive site, so I’m really pleased that we’ve been able to continue that investment with a further $3 million announced in this state budget, it’s not only important because, as we lead up to 2029, places like Fremantle Prison tell an important part of West Australia’s white settlement history and What that means, but it’s an incredible tourist asset. People love coming along to have a look through the prison. They’ve won national awards for their tourism efforts, and we want to support that sort of curiosity in our in our built heritage. But it’s also important for jobs in our tourism industry.
REPORTER: Would this $3 million be used for?
MCGURK: So, the $3 million that we’re investing will go to upgrading the gift shop that sits at the reception area for the prison and also some of the collections area. So, it’s important that when people look through the cells, they look through various parts of the prison, they’re also interested in seeing some of the collected works that the prison has. It attracts thousands of visitors each year. And this investment will help not only stabilize the prison itself, the structures within the prison, but also make sure that visitors get a better experience.
ENDS
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