Batteries key to Australia’s 82% renewables 2030 target

A report by clean energy think tank CEF highlights key factors accelerating Australia’s electricity-sector transition toward the target of 82% renewable energy by 2030.

The report singles out better policy, new investment, and faster project approvals as key to success and outlines the pace of development, with battery deployment a particular reason to be confident.

Report author and CEF Director Tim Buckley told pv magazine 47.4% of Australia’s NEM was powered by renewables in October 2024.

“We’re over half way there,” said Buckley. “[Analyst] Rystad have put their numbers out, which are included in our report, and those figures tell the story of what’s happened in 2024, which include the two projects that Lightsource bp announced this week.”

“Rystad’s numbers show renewable [energy facility] construction starting across Australia is more than 8.5 GW, which is 25% growth on last year, where last year was a nice big growth too but you can see construction has started on 4.9 GW of batteries [in] YTD [year-to-date] 2024.”

Buckley added, a new battery announcement seems to be coming down the pipeline almost every day and, unlike Rystad’s figures, which focus only on projects starting construction, the CEF report includes projects under construction and awaiting approvals, final investment decisions, and completion.

“You can see on their data, there were ten times more batteries in 2023 than 2022,” said Buckley. “Then we’ve got another 20% to 30% growth in 2024 and that, to me, is gold.”

In November 2024, Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator issued a report saying it expected the nation to have generated an average 45% clean energy in the NEM in 2025.

“So we’re on track to average 39% this year, that’s a 6% increase in one year and we’ve got another five years to go, from 2025 to 2030, which means we’re going to get very close to 82% and with the Capacity Investment Scheme [government renewables investment program], my forecast is that we will just accelerate,” Buckley said.

From pv magazine Australia.