Renewable energy in Australia includes wind power, hydroelectricity, solar photovoltaics, heat pumps, geothermal, wave and solar thermal energy.
In 2022, Australia produced 84,056 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy, which accounted for 35.9% of electricity production.
Australia produced 378.7 PJ of overall renewable energy (including renewable electricity) in 2016-17, which accounted for 6.2% of Australia's total energy use (6,146 PJ). Renewable energy grew by an annual average of 3.2% in the 10 years between 2007 and 2017, and by 5.2% between 2016 and 2017. This contrasts to growth in coal (1.9%), oil (1.7%) and gas (2.9%) over the same 10-year period.
Similar to many other countries, development of renewable energy in Australia has been encouraged by government energy policy implemented in response to concerns about climate change, energy independence and economic stimulus.
Renewable energy by fuel type
Timeline of developments
2001
A mandatory renewable energy target is introduced to encourage large-scale renewable energy development.
2007
Several reports have discussed the possibility of Australia setting a renewable energy target of 25% by 2020. Combined with some basic energy efficiency measures, such a target could deliver 15,000 MW new renewable power capacity, $33 billion in new investment, 16,600 new jobs, and 69 million tonnes reduction in electricity sector greenhouse gas emissions.
2008
Greenpeace released a report in 2008 called "Energy [r]evolution: A Sustainable Energy Australia Outlook", detailing how Australia could produce 40% of its energy through renewable energy by 2020 and completely phase out coal-fired power by 2030 without any job losses. David Spratt and Phillip Sutton argue in their book Climate Code Red that Australia needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions down to zero as quickly as possible so that carbon dioxide can be drawn down from the atmosphere and greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to less than 325 ppm CO2-e, which they argue is the upper "safe climate" level at which we can continue developing infinitely. They outline a plan of action which would accomplish this. 2010
Mandatory renewable energy target was increased to 41,000 gigawatt-hours of renewable generation from power stations. This was subsequently reduced to 33,000 gigawatt-hours by the Abbott government, in a compromise agreed to by the Labor opposition. Alongside this there is the Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme, an uncapped scheme to support rooftop solar power and solar hot water and several State schemes providing feed-in tariffs to encourage photovoltaics.
ZCA launch their "Stationary Energy Plan" showing Australia could entirely transition to renewable energy within a decade by building 12 very large scale solar power plants (3500 MW each), which would provide 60% of electricity used, and 6500 7.5 MW wind turbines, which would supply most of the remaining 40%, along with other changes. The transition would cost A$370 billion or about $8/household/week over a decade to create a renewable energy infrastructure that would last a minimum of 30 to 40 years.
2012
In 2012, these policies were supplemented by a carbon price and a 10 billion-dollar fund to finance renewable energy projects, although these initiatives were later withdrawn by the Abbott government.
Of all renewable electrical sources in 2012, hydroelectricity represented 57.8%, wind 26%, bioenergy 8.1%, solar PV 8%, large-scale solar 0.147%, geothermal 0.002% and marine 0.001%; additionally, solar hot water heating was estimated to replace a further 2,422 GWh of electrical generation.
2015
The Australian Government ordered the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to refrain from any new investment in wind power projects, saying that the government prefers the corporation to invest in researching new technologies rather than the "mature" wind turbine sector.
2017
An unprecedented 39 projects, both solar and wind, with a combined capacity of 3,895 MW, are either under construction, constructed or would start construction in 2017 having reached financial closure. Capacity addition based on renewable energy sources is expected to increase substantially in 2017 with over 49 projects either under construction, constructed or which have secured funding and will go to construction. As of August 2017, it was estimated that Australia generated enough to power 70% of the country's households, and once additional wind and solar projects were complete at the end of the year, enough energy would be generated to power 90% of the country's homes.