A Victorian Chamber member, CEC advocates for a unified and coordinated approach with industry and government to reach Australia’s renewable energy targets.

Renewable Projects Quarterly Report Q4 2022 highlights the progress made in clean energy investment and generation in Australia over the past 12 months.

The report indicates that while there has been an increase in clean energy investment and generation, there is still work to do to ensure that more projects reach financial commitment.

Key findings include:

• Year-to-year clean energy investment saw a 17 per cent bump on 2021, with $6.2 billion in 2022
• In the fourth quarter of 2022, investment in financially committed generation and storage projects reached $4.29 billion, almost 10 times more than in Q3 2022
• These strong results were largely due to the Golden Plains Wind Farm, Victoria’s biggest wind farm, with Stage 1 of the 756 MW project holding a standalone value of $2 billion
• However, in 2022, only 26 projects across Australia reached financial commitment, seven fewer than in 2021
• Only $2.53 billion worth of projects reached the final commissioned phase in 2022, which was far lower than the $6.96 billion worth of projects that reached this milestone in 2021.

Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said: “While the uptick is encouraging, one quarter doesn’t mean a trend. Australia is deploying new large-scale generation – wind and solar farms – more slowly than needed to reach the 82 per cent target for renewable energy on the National Electricity Market.

“The fact remains that the rolling quarterly average investment over 12 months has not risen above $2 billion since the second quarter of 2019.”

Next steps

While there has been an increase in renewable energy investment in Victoria and Australia, more is needed to meet national and state renewable targets. This indicates the policy settings may not be fit-for-purpose to attract viable investments.

This is reflected by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in its updated Electricity Statement of Opportunities that noted all mainland states in the National Electricity Market are forecast to breach the reliability standard from 2027 onwards without substantial new investment as numerous coal-fired power stations are set to retire.

The State and Federal governments will need to continue to work with industry to shore up confidence in the energy market by providing certainty, investing in clean energy projects and supporting research and development.

The Victorian Chamber’s recently released energy roadmap, Achieving a Net-Zero Economy: Roadmap for Victorian Business, reinforces these findings that government and industry need ongoing collaboration and fit-for-purpose policy settings to reach our renewable energy targets and that if we are to reach a net-zero economy a whole economy approach is vital.