Clean Energy Australia Report 2020

The Clean Energy Australia report provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian clean energy sector.

The report covers the latest key figures and statistics on the national energy market. It is the only analysis that includes the National Electricity Market, the Western Australian electricity grid and other major regional grids across the country in areas such as the Northern Territory.

2019 Snapshot

Another year of extraordinary growth saw records tumble in 2019 as state governments, industry and communities embraced the transition to clean energy. Australia's large-scale renewable energy capacity increased by 2.2 GW across 34 projects in 2019, with large-scale solar making up more than two-thirds of this new capacity. The rooftop solar juggernaut also continued as the industry's 2.2 GW of installed capacity smashed the previous year's record of 1.6 GW. This extra capacity increased renewable energy's contribution to Australia's total electricty generation to 24 per cent.

Key findings

• The renewable energy industry was responsible for almost 23,000 jobs across the construction, operations and maintenance and rooftop solar installation sectors in 2019.
• There were 287,504 rooftop solar installations in 2019, which was the most installs since 2012 and the third-highest number ever. However, the continued growth in average system size, which again increased to 7.62 kW in 2019, meant that the industry's 2.2 GW of installed capacity was more than 35 per cent higher than last year's record.
• The energy storage sector is gaining momentum, with the more than 22,000 small-scale batteries installed 2019 taking Australia's household storage capacity past 1 GWh for the first time and 15 large-scale batteries under construction at the end of 2019.
• 2019 was a huge year for the emerging renewable hydrogen industry, with $370 million in funding allocated under the National Hydrogen Strategy and the states delivering their own hydrogen strategies and projects.