Australia’s CIS Tender 10: the revenue floor you bid is the one you sign

In Tender 10 of Australia’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), every bidder wrote the money terms of its own contract, an unindexed revenue floor, ceiling and cap for up to 15 years; the financial score rewarded low numbers, all else being equal, while the Guidelines asked for numbers the project could finance. Under the resulting Capacity Investment Scheme Agreement (CISA), the Australian Government tops a project’s revenue up by 90% of the difference when it falls below the Annual Floor, the operator pays the Government 50% of the excess revenue above the Annual Ceiling, and the Annual Payment Cap limits both payments. Each of the three is a fixed nominal amount per financial year with no indexation or escalation, and the support term, also bid, runs at most 15 years after the Support Start Date.^{1, 2, 3}

The Guidelines told proponents to make their bids both competitive and “sufficient to enable their Project to reach Financial Close”, considering the project’s financing structure and realistic expectations of debt and equity, and left each proponent responsible for its own figures. Yet the financial criterion, MC1, carried 50% of the merit score and favours a low forecast Net CISA Cost and Maximum Liability, which, all else being equal, fall with a lower floor, ceiling and cap and fewer support years.¹ So, all else being equal, the figures that scored best on MC1 gave the project the least downside protection to raise finance against, and a selected developer signs on the basis of them, unindexed, for the whole term, unless the Government agrees amendments. During the tender, AEMO Limited and its subsidiary AusEnergy Services Limited (ASL), which administer it, may also ask proponents to respond to amended Bid Variables.¹

As of 19 October 2026, the Open CIS tenders page of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), last updated on 27 August 2026, listed Tender 10, whose bids closed on 18 August 2026, among the CIS tenders in progress, with results indicated for January/February 2027.⁵ On the same day, 19 October 2026, ASL’s Tender 10 page, last updated on 4 August 2026, gave Q1 2027 for announcing successful bids.⁴ The Guidelines had said December 2026. The tender sought an indicative 4 GW of 4-hour equivalent, or 16 GWh, of dispatchable capacity in the National Electricity Market (NEM), a volume the Government may raise or lower within the tender’s Policy Objectives.^{1, 4}

A Tender 10 bid is binding: an offer open for acceptance through its Validity Period, which ends when the bid entity signs a CISA, at the Government’s notice (expected about nine calendar months after bids closed), if the tender is cancelled, or if the proponent withdraws by notice giving its reasons. The contract was part of the bid: a clean version of the project documents in a form “considered capable of acceptance by the Australian Government”, needing no further changes beyond details still to be completed, with a Departures Table giving the reason for any departure. Departures were to be “strictly necessary”: one that adds risk, administrative burden or cost for the Government, or strays from the Policy Objectives, can exclude a bid, and a bid without a Departures Table accepts the documents in full.¹

The Government, through the Minister, selects the successful proponents on the recommendation of AEMO Limited and ASL, notifies each that it intends to sign on terms satisfactory to the Government, and may reject proposed departures. A selected proponent must then enter into the project documents on the basis of its bid, subject to any amendments agreed with the Government, and may not raise departures it did not bid, unless they concern provisions the Government has changed since.¹

In drawing up the recommended bids, AEMO Limited and ASL may take into account whether a proponent announced as successful in an earlier CIS tender went on to execute its binding commitments and sign the project documents. A selected developer that decides not to sign can still withdraw, but that record may be weighed against it in a later CIS tender.¹

Source: Tender 10’s Tender Guidelines (Table 5 and Merit Criterion 2), the proforma CISA (Reference Details, Schedule 5 and the clauses on security, milestones and commissioning) and the Q&A on indexation.^{1, 2, 3}

The milestone dates up to Financial Close are bid as well; a missed date needs a draft cure plan within 30 Business Days, and if Financial Close is not reached within 40 Business Days after the Financial Close sunset date, the CISA ends automatically, unless a draft cure plan is pending or approved or that period is extended. That automatic end, like termination by the Commonwealth for defaults that include missed milestones, late commissioning, the security and the social licence commitments, obliges the operator to pay an Early Termination Amount. Before commercial operation it is AUD 20,000 per MW of export capacity, up to AUD 4,000,000. The Commonwealth puts its own loss higher, at a “genuine pre-estimate of its loss at greater than $4,000,000”, and sets the amount lower for value-for-money reasons.²

The Performance Security uses the same formula. It is a letter of credit or bank guarantee from an Australian branch of an authorised deposit-taking institution rated at least A- (Standard & Poor’s) or A3 (Moody’s), due within 20 Business Days of signing. If the Early Termination Amount goes unpaid, the Commonwealth may draw on the security. The bid was already scored on this: MC3, the criterion on organisational, resource and financing capability, assessed the ability to provide the security and counted evidence of it as higher merit.^{1, 2} Before commercial operation, then, the security covers exactly what the developer would owe if the project failed to reach Financial Close, whatever the reason.

MC4, First Nations participation and benefits sharing, and MC5, social outcomes and community benefits sharing, carried 12.5% of the merit score each. Once a selected proponent signs, the commitments behind those scores become Social Licence Commitments in the CISA, with reporting, cure plans, abatements and termination for a failed cure plan.^{1, 2, 3} A termination they lead to before commercial operation carries the same Early Termination Amount.

The time to test whether the project can be financed on the terms it bid is therefore before the CISA is signed: until then, a selected developer that walks away risks a record that may be weighed in later CIS tenders; afterwards, failing to reach Financial Close costs up to AUD 4,000,000.

Projects were to show a credible pathway to commercial operations by 31 December 2030; under MC2, project deliverability and timeline, earlier credible dates score higher, and a later COD Target Date (COD: the commercial operations date), or no credible pathway, “may be considered low merit and not further assessed”.¹ The COD Sunset Date “must be 12 months after the COD Target Date as bid”; missing it lets the Commonwealth terminate, unless a COD cure plan it requested is pending, or approved and followed. The support clock hangs on that bid date: the Support Period starts at commercial operation or at the Final Support Commencement Date, whichever comes first, and that date is the COD Sunset Date as bid, which “cannot be extended under this agreement (even if the COD Sunset Date is extended by reason of Force Majeure)”. The support term, at most 15 years, is counted from that start.²

So a project that commissions after its COD Sunset Date as bid, under an extension or a cure plan, starts its support term on that date anyway, and each month beyond it comes off its years of support. An earlier COD Target Date scores better under MC2 if it is credible, but it also brings forward the date from which the Commonwealth may terminate and the latest start of the support term.

Tender 8, the previous NEM dispatchable round, had the same 4 GW / 16 GWh target, drew 73 bids for 76.4 GWh and selected 15 projects of 4.2 GW / 16.1 GWh, so most of the 76.4 GWh bid went unselected. By our arithmetic, its bids offered 4.8 times its target volume.⁵

Tender 10’s Guidelines call it likely to be the final NEM dispatchable tender under the CIS if its targets are met, and as of 19 October 2026 DCCEEW’s scheme page, last updated on 24 June 2026, listed a proposed Tender 13 for NEM dispatchable capacity only “if required”. If Tender 10 meets the remaining dispatchable targets, that page says, the proposed Tender 13 will not be needed.^{1, 4, 6} For bids not selected, the Guidelines provide a Reserve List: the Government may place proponents on it for a stated period and, within that period and the bid’s Validity Period, make one a successful proponent, still bound by its bid. If Tender 10 does meet those targets, a place on its Reserve List, still bound by the bid, would be the last route to a CIS dispatchable contract in the NEM in the scheme’s published plans.¹

For bid security and entity rules in another storage tender, see reading a storage tender from the back; the battery storage guide sets other routes by which batteries are bought beside each other.

ListingMinds, “Australia’s CIS Tender 10: the revenue floor you bid is the one you sign”, 2 November 2026. https://www.listingminds.com/energy/field-notes/australia-capacity-investment-scheme-tender-10