Investment in major renewable energy projects throughout Australia has picked up, the latest report suggest.

The Clean Energy Council has released the September Quarter edition of its Renewable Projects Quarterly Report.

The report provides a snapshot of current conditions across the nation’s renewable energy sector.

It shows that the September quarter saw a surge in financial commitments for new projects.

In terms of generation, ten projects with a capacity of 1.405 GW reached financial commitment during the September quarter.

This represents a greater value of commitments compared that which were made across the entire year in 2023.

The largest project to reach financial close was Iberdrola’s 376 MW Broadsound Solar Farm.

Set to be constructed at Clarke Creek in Central Queensland, the farm will exist alongside 180MW of 2-hour battery energy storage and will have sufficient generation capacity to power up to 145,000 homes.

It will be built over two years.

Another major project to get the go-ahead was the 285MW Lotus Creek Wind Farm being developed by the Queensland Government owned CS Energy.

Turning to storage, eight large-scale battery projects reached financial close during the quarter with a capacity of 1.235GW.

Of these, the largest was the 415 MW Orana Battery Energy Storage System being developed in the Central West Oragna Renewable Energy Zone near Dubbo.

On a twelve-month quarterly rolling average basis, the value of commitments (1.290 GW) is up by 95 percent compared with its value twelve months ago.

The latest report comes as Australia is aiming to increase the degree of renewable energy penetration from 39 percent of overall electricity generation in 2023 to 82 percent of overall electricity generation by 2030.

Whilst the increase in commitment projects is a positive step, the capacity of projects in regard to which commitments ae being make remains below the 1.5 to 1.7 GW each quarter which is needed (6-7Gw per year) in order to achieve that target.

The report also comes amid disagreement between the current Labor Government and the Opposition Liberal/National Coalition about the strategy for Australia’s energy future.

Whilst the Government is pinning its hopes on renewable energy supported by storage and additional transmission to connect new generation assets to the grid, the Coalition is set to take a policy that would involve nuclear power to the election.

Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton welcomed the latest results.

“This is terrific news for energy consumers across the country, who will benefit from the next generation of power plants coming online, putting downward pressure on electricity prices,” he said.

“If we sustain the level of investment for new wind and solar power plants which we have seen in the third quarter of this year, we can get back on track to achieving Australia’s target of 82 per cent renewable energy generation by 2030.”

 

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