Rooftop solar now outsizes coal on Australia's main grid
Installed generation capacity by source in Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM), GW, AEMO fact sheet, 2025.
Rooftop solar is the largest block of capacity on Australia's main grid, ahead of coal at 21.3 GW.
Rooftop panels make up 25.5% of all installed capacity in the NEM; coal is 24.1%.
Australia had about 4.3 million rooftop systems and 28.3 GW nationally by end-2025, per the Clean Energy Council.
the numbers
| Capacity (GW) | Share (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Rooftop solar | 22.5 | 25.5 |
| Coal | 21.3 | 24.1 |
| Gas | 12.2 | 13.8 |
| Wind | 11.7 | 13.3 |
| Grid-scale solar | 10.0 | 11.4 |
| Hydro | 8.0 | 9.1 |
| Battery storage | 2.4 | 2.7 |
| Biomass and other | 0.1 | 0.2 |
source notes & method
Capacity figures are from AEMO's NEM fact sheet (page dated 11 Oct 2025), retrieved via a copy hosted by Hydro Tasmania; no exact 'as at' date for the MW values is stated. NEM excludes Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Capacity is not generation: rooftop solar produces far less energy per GW than coal. Coal is black and brown combined. Shares of total are derived (progrss calculation, sum of the eight categories = 88.1 GW). National end-2025 figures (28.3 GW, 4.3 million systems, 14.2% of generation in H2 2025) are from the Clean Energy Council Rooftop Solar and Storage Report, Jul–Dec 2025 (cleanenergycouncil.org.au).
Published 3 Nov 2026
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