Australia’s most pro-coal state is still a hot spot for wind and solar, even after ripping up renewab... - Renew Economy

New South Wales continues to attract wind and solar investment despite the state government's pro-coal rhetoric and recent moves to curtail renewable approvals. Developers are proceeding with projects in the state, suggesting that economics and grid demand are overriding political messaging against renewables.

Where this fits

This reflects the cost advantage of renewables per megawatt-hour, which is real. But it masks a deeper structural problem: NSW is building wind and solar capacity without equivalent firm dispatchable power to match weather-dependent output. The state is installing generation that requires either gas firming or long-distance transmission to borrow power from other states. Neither solution is cheap or secure at scale. The real cost of a renewables-heavy grid, firming, transmission overbuild, battery storage, is being deferred, not avoided. NSW's investment in solar and wind without a parallel commitment to firm power (whether gas or nuclear) is locking in a system that will need all three, at cumulative cost.

What it means

NSW is repeating the pattern across the grid: chasing renewable megawatt-hour prices while the whole-system cost, balancing, transmission, storage, and dispatchability, is borne separately and grows quietly. A firm low-carbon alternative, nuclear, remains banned by federal law, forcing Australia toward a more expensive, material-intensive, China-dependent path. The state's wind and solar will be built, but the bill for reliability will come later, embedded in transmission upgrades, gas peaker plants, and battery spending that could have been avoided by choosing firm, dense, low-material generation.