Global warming surged last year, but there is also good news

As for the past decade, another year has ended with grim news that the planet had warmed faster than expected as greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere.

It has been confirmed that 2024 was not just the hottest year on record, but also the first to be 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial conditions.

Clearly, the world is not acting fast enough on climate. But there has been good news, too, over the past year. Clean technology is being deployed faster than ever as the race to bend the emission curve downward gathers pace.

So on that note, here are six good news stories about the energy transition in Australia to start off 2025.

Electric buses are making cities cleaner and quieter

When the $1.55 billion Brisbane Metro opens early this year, every major capital in Australia will have electric buses. Sixty bi-articulated vehicles have been delivered to start operations on January 28. Using flash-charging technology at the end of the route, the buses can fully recharge in just over six minutes.

In Victoria, Ventura’s Ivanhoe depot has been converted to accommodate the state’s largest fleet of zero-emissions buses.

This follows Adelaide, which introduced its first example in December 2023, accompanying the city’s 23 existing hybrid buses, and Launceston, which is trialling electrics until 2026. Perth has been introducing 18 of 130 new electric buses since last September after a trial in 2022, and in Victoria, 50 electrics have been rolled out in the same period. Additionally, new buses in the state from July 1 will need to be emissions-free, though regional buses will be exempt.

The NSW government introduced electric buses in 2019, and it has since procured the largest fleet in Australia. It has 180 operating and 319 ordered. Construction will start this year on a dedicated electric bus depot at Macquarie Park, and 11 depots are to be converted before 2028.

Electric car sales remain strong

In 2024, battery electric and plug-in hybrid sales surpassed 100,000 for the first time. Conventional hybrid sales exceeded 158,000. Across the nation, the number of public charging stations doubled.

There is also positive news from overseas. In Norway, nearly 90 per cent of cars sold in 2024 were electric, higher than anywhere else in the world, and rising 252.8 per cent since 2018, while in China, electric car sales are predicted to overtake combustion car sales this year, 10 years earlier than predicted as recently as 2020.

Sales of electric vehicles are expected to climb.Credit: Bloomberg

Australia is lagging behind those leaders. About 10 per cent of cars sold in 2024 were EVs but the introduction of the National Vehicle Emissions Standard on January 1 should accelerate the domestic transition. It will work by capping the amount of CO2 that each automotive company’s fleet can produce in a given year. The cap will be progressively lowered and there will be penalties for companies failing to keep below the curve.

Solar uptake keeps climbing

In November 2024, Australia surpassed 4 million rooftop solar installations, amounting to more than 300,000 units installed every year. When combined, new rooftop and large-scale solar has expanded by 40 gigawatts since 2015. It now accounts for 18 per cent of electricity generated.

Australia has the highest rooftop solar penetration in the world.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Rooftop solar alone now has an installed capacity of 25GW, compared to just over 21GW for coal power plants. The boom has also been good for our wallets, Clean Energy Council chief Kane Thornton says. Rooftop solar saves $6 billion in power bills each year.

Furthermore, the NSW government solar battery rebate commenced in November 2024, providing discounts on the installation of solar-connected batteries with accredited installers. Discounts can range from $770 to $2400, depending on the size of the battery.

Big batteries and wind farms are surging, too

Investment in battery technology was significant 2024. Renewables company Neoen is building the 238.5-megawatt Blyth battery in South Australia which, along with a nearby wind farm, will supply 70 megawatts of baseload power to BHP’s Olympic Dam mine. The battery will ensure that one of the world’s largest mines for copper, a mineral vital in producing renewable technologies like solar power and batteries, can operate sustainably.

GPG Australia’s 96 megawatt Crookwell 2 wind farm, near Goulburn in NSW.

Neoen also opened the first stage of the Collie battery in Western Australia last October. When stage two is completed later this year, the battery will be the largest in Australia, five times bigger than Australia’s first big battery, completed in Hornsdale, SA, in 2017.

A collaboration with Australian engineering company UGL and American behemoth Tesla, the completed battery will have a capacity of 560 megawatts, enough to charge and discharge 20 per cent of electricity in Western Australia’s main grid, powering over a million people.

Nationwide renewable energy capacity has increased by 40 per cent since 2022.

Transmission to move all this new power is on the way

In 2025, construction will begin on HumeLink, an electrical transmission project that will let more renewable energy enter the national grid, connecting the expanded Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric scheme to the national grid.

Electricity transmission lines in the Latrobe Valley.Credit: Bloomberg

Heavy industry is catching up

A proposal to build an electric smelter to make cleaner steel in WA has won government backing. A partnership between steelmaker BlueScope, miners BHP and Rio Tinto, and energy company Woodside, the facility, called NeoSmelt, would produce molten iron, the key component in steel manufacturing, with low emissions.

The plant would use hydrogen to reduce iron ore to direct reduced iron, which can then be further refined in an electric smelting furnace. Although natural gas will initially be used, the consortium has indicated that once operations begin, it will transition to green hydrogen. Operations are to start in 2028.

The NeoSmelt site in Kwinana, Western Australia.

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