It’s Thursday 25th June 2026 and, as it is required to do, the AEMO has released the 2026 iteration of the Integrated System Plan.

… this followed the release of the draft of the 2026 ISP back on 10th December 2025.

In this article, we’ll point to what we can see elsewhere … any thoughts from us directly will have to wait for a (possible) later article …

(A)  From the AEMO

There’s a few different pieces of information, as follows:

In the Newsroom, the AEMO has published a Media Release this morning ‘AEMO publishes least-cost pathway for the National Electricity Market’ with the key point being:

‘The centrepiece of the ISP is the optimal development path (ODP), which sets out the least-cost way to support secure and reliable electricity supply as coal power stations retire and electricity consumption near doubles, while meeting government policy through to 2050.’

* I’ve highlighted the last bit of the sentence, because (in my view) it’s nice to see AEMO explicitly calling out this requirement (which was the subject of much discussion since the release of the 2024 ISP, including in those Senate hearings.

(B)  Media Headlines

A quick scan of the main media outlets reveals a number of articles … and, no surprise, the themes ‘battery, consumers, delay/risk, data centers’ feature in the titles:

1)  In the AFR what we have seen is as follows:

(a)  Unlike for the draft of 2026 (where it made page 2) readers need to flip to page 8 for the article  ‘Battery boom upends $106b power grid blueprint’ by Angela MacDonald-Smith and Ryan Cropp.

(b)  More to come?

2)  In the Australian there have been:

(a)  Perry Williams and Colin Packham wrote ‘Australia’s 2030 renewable target threatened by huge data centre power demand’.

(b)  More to come?

3)  In the Guardian:

(a)  Could not see anything, on a quick scan

4)  Via RenewEconomy:

(a)  Sophie Vorrath wrote ‘Households lead march to least-cost electricity, as AEMO issues “call to arms” on renewable transition’

(b)  And probably more?

5)  In the SMH/Age:

(a)  Have not looked yet

6)  On ABC:

(a)  Did not see anything yet

7)  In PV Magazine:

(a)  Did not see anything yet

8)  In ‘The Energy’:

(a)  Kate Burgess wrote ‘Batteries shine in market operator’s 2050 system blueprint’

8)  In ‘Energy Magazine’:

(a)  Tom Parker wrote ‘Consumers steal the show as AEMO launches 2026 ISP’

  … no doubt there are more that I’ve not come across, yet.

(C)  Industry Organisations

Where we notice anything by the main industry organisations we’ll add references in here…

1)  Perhaps later….

(D)  On social media

Where we notice anything particularly interesting on social media (and have the time) we’ll add references in here…

1)  Perhaps later….