The truth about Australia’s race to roll out renewables

Federal authorities have approved 51 renewable energy projects since the last election to add to the electricity grid and prepare for the closure of coal-fired power stations amid a growing political row about the need for new capacity to avoid future shortages.

The new projects are expected to add 8.4 gigawatts of clean energy to the grid, almost three times the capacity of the country’s biggest coal-fired power stations, and will be accompanied by storage to deal with intermittent supply from wind and solar farms.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer, Alex Ellinghausen

But Labor is confronting rising concern from renewable companies about obstacles to their investments despite the urgent need for additional supply even after state decisions to extend the lives of the Eraring coal-fired power station in NSW and the Loy Yang A power station in Victoria.

The new figures heighten the dispute over energy policy after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton revealed this week he would not set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and would instead propose building nuclear power stations to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will cite the 51 approvals since the last election as proof that Labor has backed more renewable projects in its two years in office than the Coalition did during its nine years in power.

Plibersek has authority under environmental law to make final decisions on new projects ranging from motorways to solar farms and coal mines, although some projects can also be challenged under state laws.

“I’ve ticked off a record 51 renewable energy projects – more than the Abbott and Turnbull governments combined and enough to power more than 3 million Australian homes,” Plibersek said.

“That means, on average, the Labor government is greenlighting a new renewable energy project every fortnight.

“While Peter Dutton and the Coalition are watering down our climate targets, Labor is getting on with the job of the renewable energy transition.”

Energy investors want faster approvals by state governments, especially NSW, as well as the rapid construction of new power lines so the grid can carry renewable energy from mammoth solar farms and offshore wind turbines.

“If we don’t accelerate the pace of delivery of renewable energy, we will have supply shortfalls,” Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said.

“Planning systems across the country are not fit for purpose for the scale of change that is needed in the time available.”

One concern is the time required for federal approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – the law that gives Plibersek the final say on projects – but investors are also highlighting the slow approval times within state bureaucracies.

Squadron Energy chief executive Rob Wheals, whose projects include the giant Uungula Wind Farm near Wellington in NSW, said one problem was the lack of central co-ordination in the NSW state system.

“In order to speed up the rollout of renewable energy projects, governments, both state and federal, should focus on land access, grid capacity and streamlining the involvement of multiple agencies in the approvals process,” he said.

Labor has set a target to cut emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 and insists it is on track, but the goal assumes renewable sources will make up 82 per cent of electricity generation by that deadline.

The Clean Energy Regulator said last month that companies added 5.3 gigawatts of renewable capacity to the grid in 2023, but it has previously warned that Australia needed to add at least 7 gigawatts each year to achieve its emissions target for 2030.

Labor estimates its key policy to reduce emissions, the Capacity Investment Scheme, will underwrite 23 gigawatts of renewable generation by 2030. But the regulator’s analysis, matched by industry analysis from the Clean Energy Council, suggests 42 gigawatts of renewable capacity should be installed over the six years to 2030.

Acciona Energy, whose MacIntyre wind farm in Queensland is one of the world’s biggest, said big new projects needed approval to take the place of others that were being scaled back or shelved.

“There’s new gigawatt-scale projects in early development now that will truly move the needle on the 2030 targets, but they need to get approved,” its Australian managing director, Brett Wickham, said.

“We need black and white criteria to bring more transparency to the process for proponents and help speed up assessments.

“The additional $130 million in federal departmental funding to speed up environmental approvals is absolutely welcome.”

According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, it takes 27 months on average for a project to move from planning and approval under the EPBC to coming online.

The approved renewable projects in NSW include the Tilbuster solar farm near Armidale, the Quorn Park solar project near Parkes, the Marulan Solar Farm, the Orana battery storage project near Wellington and the Silver City storage project near Broken Hill.

The projects in Victoria include the Elaine battery storage system near Ballarat, the Melton battery north of Melbourne and the Numurkah solar farm near Shepparton.

The result is expected to add 8.4 gigawatts to the electricity grid, more than the 2.9-gigawatt capacity of the Eraring power station and the 2.2-gigawatt capacity of the Loy Yang A power station combined.

The renewable generation is accompanied by 6.4 gigawatts of storage capacity to add a degree of stability to the grid to handle increasing supplies from intermittent wind and solar farms.

Labor estimates the renewable projects add the same electricity generation as 25 small modular nuclear reactors. The Coalition is yet to say what kind of nuclear power plants it will propose when it reveals its policy.

The decisions are key to the construction of more electricity generation as the coal-fired stations reach the end of their working lives, given it would take decades to build any nuclear power plants if Australians back Dutton and his policy at the federal election.

Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien has warned against relying heavily on solar and wind to support the electricity grid when they are intermittent sources of electricity when compared to baseload options such as nuclear power stations.

O’Brien has promised an energy plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, in line with Labor’s target, but is not setting a 2030 target and is yet to unveil measures to reduce emissions in the near term or reveal where nuclear power stations would be located in the long term.

“We will be as ambitious as we can, but we’ll be contained by what’s achievable. And we’ll be honest and transparent,” he told Sky News.

“It’s why we talk about the need to have a balanced mix of energy including renewables, gas and zero emissions nuclear energy as coal exits the system.”

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