Australia Constructed 5,000 Megawatts of Wind and Solar Farms in 2022

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by | Feb 17, 2023

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In 2022, the Australian renewable energy industry broke through a major milestone, commencing construction on over 5,000 megawatts of wind and solar farms. This is on top of another strong year for small-scale rooftop solar of slightly under 3,000 megawatts.

Green Energy Markets’ core business, since being established in 2008, has been tracking Australia’s renewable energy project pipeline and supply and demand across both large-scale renewables and small-scale rooftop solar.

For the past few years, the company had been expecting a slowdown in investment to occur due to the fact that the projected supply of renewable energy certificates known as LGCs far exceed the mandated Renewable Energy Target. Additionally, there was an expectation that the boom in solar and wind capacity additions since 2016 would depress wholesale power prices to low levels during sunny and windy conditions.

However, the investment slow-down hasn’t materialized, in large part thanks to state governments stepping in to underwrite new investments through the provision of contracts.

The other big factor has been the emergence of demand and long-term offtake contracts from large corporations with significant commitments to purchase and retire renewable energy certificates or LGCs.

One of the most significant projects in Australia last year was a 200-megawatt solar farm, adding to the area’s renewable energy goal and marking the first international renewable energy agreement by Salesforce. According to the company, this site has the highest avoided emissions rate of any other Salesforce renewable energy project, avoiding two times the emissions of a comparable site in California.

The solar energy project, which began in 2020, is expected to save more than 320,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year and will generate enough electricity to power 80,000 businesses and homes in the region. It is expected to produce 420-gigawatt hours of renewable energy each year, according to X-Elio, and Salesforce has agreed to take 25% of that generation through the power purchase agreement

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