AU Grid Connection Queue Tracker (AEMO NEM)

Track Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM) generation and storage connection pipeline from AEMO's official quarterly Connections Scorecard — pipeline capacity (GW) and project counts per connection stage, split by technology (battery, solar, wind, hydro, gas) and by state (NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC), plus financial-year milestone trends and quarter-over-quarter change detection.

When should an AI agent use this?

• "How big is Australia's grid connection queue right now, and how is it split across NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria?"
• "What share of the NEM connections pipeline is battery versus solar, and how has that mix changed this quarter?"
• "Which connection stages are growing fastest — application, proponent implementation or registration — and by how many gigawatts?"
• "How many generation and storage projects reached full output in the current financial year, and how does that compare month by month?"
• "Has the NEM pipeline grown or shrunk since my last run, and by how many gigawatts?"

What this Actor does

• Reads AEMO's official quarterly NEM Connections Scorecard workbook (keyless, no API key required).
• Returns the current in-progress pipeline per connection stage — Enquiry, Application, Proponent Implementation, Registration and Commissioning to Full Output — in GW and project counts. Enquiry is flagged as excluded from AEMO's published pipeline total.
• Breaks every stage down by generation/storage technology (gas, wind off-shore, wind on-shore, solar, solar+battery, battery, hydro, other) and by NEM state (NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC).
• Returns the financial-year performance milestones (Approved Applications, Approved Registrations, Full Output Achieved) with the full 12-month trend and the fiscal-year-to-date total.
• Adds cross-run change detection via a named key-value store: each record is flagged as new/changed and carries the GW delta versus your previous run.
• Provides a free run summary record with the total pipeline (GW and project count).
• Uses a dependency-free XLSX parser — no vulnerable spreadsheet library.

Input

The actor works with zero input. All fields are optional filters.

Field	Type	Description
stages	enum[]	Filter on connection stage (enquiry, application, proponent_implementation, registration, commissioning_to_full_output, …). Empty = all.
technologies	enum[]	Filter the stage breakdown on technology (battery, solar, solar_battery, wind_onshore, …). Empty = all eight.
states	enum[]	Filter the stage breakdown on NEM state (NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC). Empty = all five.
recordTypes	enum[]	Which record types to deliver: pipeline, milestones, summary. Empty = all three.
scorecardUrl	string	Optional override of the AEMO workbook URL to pin a specific quarter. Must be an https URL on aemo.com.au.
onlyChangedSinceLastRun	boolean	Default true: deliver only new/changed records. Set to false for the full filtered snapshot every run.

How filters interact with the numbers

This trips people up, so it is worth being explicit:

• gw and projects are always the stage total, regardless of any technology or state filter. With technologies: ["battery"] you get gw: 35.293 (all of Application) next to a byTechnology array containing only battery.
• The filtered sums are exposed separately as filteredTechnologyGw / filteredTechnologyProjects and filteredStateGw / filteredStateProjects. With technologies: ["battery"] on the Application stage: filteredTechnologyGw = 22.154.
• splitFilteredBy tells you which filter is active (technologies, states, BOTH, or null when the arrays are complete). A null filtered sum means "not filtered", not zero.
• stages only selects which stages are delivered; it does not change their numbers.

A note on onlyChangedSinceLastRun

AEMO publishes the scorecard quarterly, so the underlying numbers only move four times a year. If you run this actor twice in the same week with the default onlyChangedSinceLastRun: true, the second run correctly returns nothing. Use false for a full snapshot, or schedule the actor quarterly. The summary record always reports deliveredStageCount and changedStageCount so an empty result is self-explanatory.

Output (example)

One pipeline_stage record:

{
  "recordType": "pipeline_stage",
  "key": "2025-2026|stage:application",
  "period": "2025-2026",
  "reportDate": "2026-06-30",
  "stage": "application",
  "stageLabel": "Application",
  "gw": 35.293,
  "projects": 128,
  "includedInTotal": true,
  "byTechnology": [
    { "technology": "battery", "gw": 22.154, "projects": 85 },
    { "technology": "solar_battery", "gw": 5.24, "projects": 19 },
    { "technology": "wind_onshore", "gw": 5.035, "projects": 12 }
  ],
  "byState": [
    { "state": "NSW", "gw": 13.745, "projects": 56 },
    { "state": "QLD", "gw": 12.171, "projects": 34 }
  ],
  "splitFilteredBy": null,
  "filteredTechnologyGw": null,
  "filteredTechnologyProjects": null,
  "filteredStateGw": null,
  "filteredStateProjects": null,
  "isNewSinceLastRun": true,
  "isChangedSinceLastRun": true,
  "previousGw": null,
  "gwDelta": null,
  "source": "AEMO Connections Scorecard",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/network_connections/connections-scorecard/2026/Chart-data-june-2026.xlsx",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-01T17:22:08.842Z"
}

One milestone record carries the monthly trend and the FYTD total:

{
  "recordType": "milestone",
  "key": "2025-2026|milestone:full_output",
  "milestone": "full_output",
  "milestoneLabel": "Full Output achieved",
  "fyTotalGW": 9.098,
  "fyTotalProjects": 34,
  "monthly": [
    { "period": "2025-07", "gw": 0.202, "projects": 1 },
    { "period": "2026-06", "gw": 1.101, "projects": 4 }
  ]
}

A free summary record reports the total pipeline, the per-stage breakdown, and the additive technology and state totals across the whole pipeline (every project sits in exactly one stage, so these sums are a reliable national total):

{
  "recordType": "summary",
  "reportDate": "2026-06-30",
  "totalPipelineGW": 75.368,
  "totalPipelineProjects": 323,
  "enquiryGW": 195.9,
  "enquiryProjects": 492,
  "countByStage": {
    "application": 128,
    "proponent_implementation": 142,
    "registration": 33,
    "commissioning_to_full_output": 20
  },
  "technologyTotals": [
    { "technology": "battery", "gw": 39.599, "projects": 178 },
    { "technology": "solar_battery", "gw": 13.623, "projects": 56 },
    { "technology": "wind_onshore", "gw": 11.498, "projects": 36 }
  ],
  "stateTotals": [
    { "state": "NSW", "gw": 26.94, "projects": 121 },
    { "state": "QLD", "gw": 25.922, "projects": 83 },
    { "state": "VIC", "gw": 14.492, "projects": 71 }
  ],
  "deliveredStageCount": 5,
  "changedStageCount": 0
}

Use cases

• Developer site-selection — screen Australian states for grid-connection headroom before committing to a large solar or battery project.
• Energy-transition investment — track how much battery/solar capacity is working through the NEM connection pipeline and where it is concentrated.
• Market and policy research — monitor the NEM pipeline quarter over quarter to gauge the pace of the energy transition and grid constraints.
• Queue monitoring for project developers — set the actor to run quarterly and receive only the stages whose capacity changed.

When to use this Actor (and when not to)

This is a NEM-wide, aggregated tracker. It reports capacity per connection stage, technology and state — it is not a per-project or per-address lookup, because AEMO publishes the scorecard as aggregated figures only. If you need a specific proponent's project status, contact AEMO/NSPs directly.

The NEM excludes Western Australia (which runs a separate Wholesale Electricity Market) and the isolated grids (Pilbara, Mount Isa, Northern Territory). This actor covers NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria only.

Pricing (Pay Per Event)

• apify-actor-start — platform default.
• pipeline-stage — $0.006 per delivered stage record after the free baseline run.
• milestone-report — $0.006 per delivered milestone record after the free baseline run.
• pipeline-change — $0.01 extra, only when a record is new or changed versus your previous run.

The first run seeds the persistent baseline and charges no custom events. In the default changed-only mode, unchanged records are free on later runs.

Legal and data source

All data comes from AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator), the operator of the National Electricity Market, via its public quarterly Connections Scorecard workbook. The figures are aggregated by AEMO ("aggregated to maintain confidentiality") and contain no personal data, project names or proponent details. Please review AEMO's terms of use if you plan to redistribute the data commercially.

FAQ

Which states are covered? NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria — the five NEM states. Western Australia is excluded.

How often is the data updated? AEMO publishes the Connections Scorecard quarterly (after March, June, September and December). The actor resolves the most recent published quarter automatically.

Does it show individual projects? No. AEMO publishes aggregated capacity and project counts, so the actor reports stage/technology/state totals — not a per-project queue.

What is the difference between "Enquiry" and the total? Enquiry is the pre-application phase and sits outside AEMO's published pipeline total (Application through to Full Output). Those records are flagged with includedInTotal: false.

Is an API key required? No. The workbook is a public, keyless download.

Keywords

AEMO, NEM, National Electricity Market, grid connection queue, Australia grid capacity, connections scorecard, grid congestion, netcongestie, renewable energy Australia, battery storage, solar, wind, hydro, gas, NSW, QLD, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, energy transition, generator connection, queue tracker.

Related Actors

• UK Grid Capacity Tracker — NESO TEC Register — the UK's equivalent grid-connection capacity tracker.
• NL Netcongestie Monitor — Dutch grid-congestion monitor.

Changelog

v0.1

• Initial release: parses AEMO's quarterly NEM Connections Scorecard workbook (keyless, dependency-free XLSX parser).
• Pipeline per connection stage with technology and state breakdowns, FY milestone trends, cross-run change detection and a free run summary.
• Reviewed before launch: recordTypes now correctly controls the summary record; a technology/state filter no longer misleads (the stage total and the filtered sums are separate fields); the pipeline total is located by label instead of a fixed row so a future AEMO layout change can't silently skew it; downloads are validated as real workbooks; and the summary adds additive technology/state totals across the whole pipeline.