Corporate buyers for wind and solar output are still rare, but the market is hurtling towards a contracting cliff

Corporate power-purchase agreements for wind and solar grew to 6 GW in 2026, the largest annual total yet, though this includes the incomplete 3 GW Tomago smelter deal. Deal numbers remain small and prices reflect a gap between developer asking rates and buyer willingness to pay while wholesale electricity is cheap and futures markets show no clear rise. The Business Renewables Centre Australia reports that battery storage now features in most deals, and innovations include direct trading arrangements and First Nations-backed solar contracts. A "contracting cliff" is forecast as the renewable energy target expires and large new industrial loads arrive, but the current slowdown has stalled progress toward the 82 per cent renewables target by 2032.

Where this fits

This story exposes the cost structure that the transition has not yet priced. Developers cannot move projects to contract at the prices corporate buyers will pay; this is not a supply shortage but a viability gap. The addition of battery storage to most deals signals that the whole-system cost of a weather-dependent grid is becoming visible in real projects: firming is not optional, and it is expensive. This pressure will intensify as intermittency rises and the need for overbuild and storage compounds.

What it means

Australia is betting the energy transition on corporate PPAs at a price point that does not yet exist. When the renewable energy target expires and industrial demand for firm power grows, the contracting cliff could become a financing cliff. The Tomago deal alone, still unsupplied after securing 3 GW of capacity, shows how hard it is to marry industrial certainty with weather-dependent output. Filling that gap will require either sustained wholesale price rises, or a shift toward firm generation sources.