Australia approves record renewable energy investments
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Investors in Australia committed to 2.1 gigawatts of large-scale renewable energy projects in the September quarter, enough to power around 1.2 million homes.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced the investment decisions, which included 1.1 gigawatts of new wind capacity and 1 gigawatt of solar. This brought the total approved renewable capacity for 2023 to 5 gigawatts, surpassing the previous annual record of 4.9 gigawatts with three months remaining in the year.
Australia needs to install approximately 29 gigawatts of large-scale renewable generation by 2030 to meet its clean energy targets, requiring about 6.3 gigawatts of new capacity each year. While recent investment is encouraging, the country faced slower rates in previous years and construction takes time, making the 82% renewable energy target for 2030 challenging. As of March, Australia had reduced greenhouse gas emissions to about 25 percentage points of its legislated 43% reduction goal for 2005 levels.
Alongside large-scale projects, Australians are also increasing small-scale renewable energy adoption. Approved home battery capacity reached 15.3 gigawatt-hours by the end of September, more than five times the amount from a year prior. Households added 90,000 rooftop solar installations and 894 megawatts of capacity in the September quarter alone. Since May 2022, when the current Labor government took office, large-scale renewable investments now total almost 17 gigawatts, and households have installed over 13 gigawatts of small-scale solar.
