The Honourable Penny Sharpe, Minister for Energy of New South Wales, delivered the closing remarks at Pumped Storage: Powering Australia’s Energy Future, a landmark series of discussions that convened energy leaders in Brisbane and Sydney. In her address, Minister Sharpe underscored the vital role of pumped storage hydropower in securing a reliable, low-carbon energy system for Australia.

“Pumped storage hydropower plays a crucial role in our energy mix—providing reliable electricity without adding to emissions and helping reduce the risks associated with frequent natural disasters. We are determined to power households and industries across the state, and the best way to do that is by backing wind and solar with long-duration storage like Pumped Storage Hydro. This is how we deliver the reliable, sustainable electricity that people expect—but we have to get it right.”

These remarks follow AEMO Services’ announcement that three projects—two batteries and, for the first time, a pumped hydro project—have been selected in its latest NSW Roadmap tender, nearly tripling the scheme’s supported energy storage capacity to 1.03 GW and 13.79 GWh, surpassing the 1 GW target.

The high-level forums, co-hosted by GHD and the International Hydropower Association (IHA), brought together policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to drive momentum behind long-duration energy storage. Discussions focused on the urgent need to scale up pumped storage hydropower as a cornerstone of Australia’s clean energy transition.

Malcolm Turnbull, President of IHA, commented:

“Australia is rolling out solar and wind power at record rates because it is the cheapest form of new generation. This revolution in clean energy is happening, but we need to move just as quickly to deliver the storage—both short and long duration—to firm these variable renewables and ensure reliability and efficiency when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine. The market alone will not deliver this back-up energy, and much more needs to be done if we’re going to incentivise the development of long-duration storage needed to maintain reliability. It’s not a choice between batteries and pumped hydro, we need both, but we need to act now. Moore’s law does not apply to digging holes and so we need to work with government and industry to drive a step change in the pace of delivery of pumped hydro projects”.  

With Australia’s clean energy transition accelerating, the need for long-duration energy storage is becoming more urgent. Over two days of discussions, participants built on the industry’s guidance note to enable de-risking pumped storage. Participants are examining the markets and revenues, project development, and contractual risks associated with pumped storage project to support financing models, policy frameworks, and regulatory barriers that must be addressed to unlock investment in new projects.  

Helen Barbour-Bourne, GHD’s National Sector Lead for Hydropower, said:

“Despite some hurdles, there’s a vast opportunity for pumped hydro to support our renewable energy future ahead of the hard deadline of coal power station closures. The private sector, backed by government policies, is stepping up, though financing remains a challenge. Together with the IHA, we brought together industry leaders to unlock pumped hydro’s potential for Australia.”  

These discussions mark a significant step in ensuring that Australia meets its net-zero commitments with a resilient and secure energy system. The outcomes of the events will be shared with the Queensland and NSW governments.  

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Quotes from panellists

Tammy Chu, Interim Executive General Manager, Construction, Hydro Tasmania and IHA Vice-Chair commented:

“Pumped hydro will be a critical part of the future energy technology mix, providing the firming capacity and flexibility to manage fluctuations in demand and keep power supply reliable. The synergies between variable renewable energy generation and pumped storage must be recognised and valued to support the development of efficient and reliable electricity grids, in Australia and internationally.”  

Anthony Garnaut, Chief Executive Officer at ZEN Energy commented:

“For the energy transition to run smoothly, we don’t need to develop new technologies so much as to learn how to deploy proven technologies well. One of these old technologies is pumped hydro. We are focused on minimising the cost and environmental impact of our project by repurposing disturbed land, utilising existing water and transmission infrastructure and delivering power directly to major load growth centres that would otherwise require costly infrastructure upgrades. This opens a number of problems of coordination between the plans of new customers such as data centre developers, transmission companies and construction companies.”  

James Katsikas, EDF Australia, Chief Executive Officer - EDF

“These discussions highlight the essential role of pumped hydro in ensuring the reliability and flexibility of Australia’s renewable energy future. At EDF Australia, we are dedicated to leveraging our global expertise to develop projects like Dungowan Pumped Hydro. Our commitment is to integrate these projects with local communities, respect environmental values, and deliver lasting benefits.”  

Kieran Cusack, Chief Executive Officer, Queensland Hydro  

"Pumped hydro energy storage is unquestionably the right technology to support Queensland’s clean energy transition. Long-duration pumped hydro can provide reliable renewable energy that can power homes and businesses all across Queensland, while at the same time providing crucial energy storage and stability for our future electricity needs. Our proposed Borumba Project is both the right technology at the right location. Hearing the discussions with industry and the International Hydropower Association on the support for the potential of pumped hydro and the role it can play in the future throughout Australia and globally highlighted there is a growing understanding of how pumped hydro energy storage is needed in the mix to play an important role during the clean energy transition."