Amid Australia's ongoing push for cleaner energy just four renewable energy generation projects have garnered financial commitments in the first half of this year, marking the lowest figure since data collection began in 2017, according to the Clean Energy Council (CEC).
This worrying number has sparked fresh concerns over the country’s ability to achieve its ambitious goal of nearly tripling renewable capacity to 82% by 2030.
Despite a second-quarter surge in energy storage investments, generation projects have experienced their slowest first six months on record since the CEC initiated project tracking.
The current investment levels are 50% below the rolling 12-month quarterly average of 699 megawatts, a pace that is too slow for Australia to achieve its renewable energy share by the end of the decade.
Stumbling blocks
Clean Energy Council chief executive officer Kane Thornton attributed the lacklustre financial commitments to historical inaction and a shortage of leadership in the past decade.
“While there is now strong political support for the clean energy transition, there remains a raft of barriers as a result of the historic lack of leadership, planning and foresight over the prior decade,” Thornton said.
“These challenges make final investment decisions for large-scale renewables projects more difficult and include under-investment in transmission, grid connection challenges, inconsistent planning policies, constraints in supply chains and workforce as Australia competes with global leaders that are all accelerating their demand for renewable energy.”
Grid and transmission
An essential bottleneck for Australia's energy transition is the transmission sector.
To meet the 2030 clean energy goals, around 10,000 kilometres of new transmission lines must be built but financial constraints and community resistance have stymied their development.
The absence of high-voltage transmission lines hampers new project commitments as renewable energy developers will not commit to the new projects until they are certain that they will be able to connect into the grid.
Some good news
Despite the hitch, the CEC reported that six battery projects secured final investment decisions in the second quarter, surpassing the billion-dollar mark for the first time.
They collectively contribute more than 3,800 megawatts per hour to Australia's energy sector, helping to mitigate worries about storage capacity as much of the country’s focus has been on expanding renewable energy sources.