CEDA, in partnership with WSP, is undertaking research into Australia's construction productivity challenge across major infrastructure sectors. This exclusive session will bring together a select group of industry and government leaders to examine the structural constraints on energy infrastructure delivery and what needs to change to meet the pace of the transition now underway.

Energy infrastructure sits at the centre of one of the most significant capital deployment challenges Australia has faced. Yet planning and approvals frameworks for renewables, transmission, and energy zones remain a primary bottleneck – shaped by regulatory settings that were not designed for the pace, scale, or geographic complexity of the transition now underway.

AEMO's draft 2026 Integrated System Plan projects total generation and storage capacity needing to triple from 92 GW to 297 GW by 2050, with electricity consumption forecast to rise 90 per cent. This is a scale of investment that existing frameworks were not built to absorb. Approval timelines vary significantly across jurisdictions: in NSW, a more formalised approvals framework has produced average approval times for wind projects close to 3,500 days. 

Across generation, transmission, and storage assets, the fragmentation of responsibilities between governments, network operators, developers, and contractors creates coordination failures that are rarely attributed to any single decision but show up in delays, cost growth, and unrealised pipeline. Workforce, supply chain, and contracting market capacity are being tested simultaneously across a pipeline that is both geographically dispersed and technically diverse, raising questions about whether the current delivery ecosystem is structured to absorb the volume of work demanded. 

Held under Chatham House Rule, co-labs are facilitated by CEDA economists or subject matter experts and are limited to a small group of participants. Each participant is expected to actively contribute to the discussion, responding to the set focus issues and drawing on practical examples where possible, with briefing packs and set questions provided to delegates prior to the co-lab.

Attendance at this co-lab is by invitation only. Discussion from this session will be captured by the CEDA team to inform our Building Better research project. Any comments disclosed as commercially sensitive will be treated with confidence and will not be included in our summary. Please contact the CEDA team if you have further questions.