Australia has announced plans to fast-track multi-billion-dollar renewable energy projects in the states of Victoria and Tasmania. They include offshore wind farms and undersea transmission cables. Australia has for the first time a legislated target to cut greenhouse gas output that aims to reduce carbon emissions by 43% by 2030.
Australia’s center-left government has said its renewable power will help the “rewiring the nation.”
The pledge includes the “rapid” development of the offshore wind industry in the state of Victoria. Electricity links between Victoria and neighboring New South Wales will also be upgraded.
The federal government will also help fund a cable — called the Marinus link project — that shares power between the island state of Tasmania and the Australian mainland.
Power generation in Tasmania is dominated by hydro power, which generates around 80% of its electricity.
Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, told reporters in Canberra Wednesday that the Marinus link will boost energy reliability.
“Tasmania, which is currently at 100% renewables, will now have the opportunity to get to 200% renewables and share that extra capacity with the mainland, which is good for Tasmania, thousands of jobs to be created and good for the mainland because it improves our energy reliability and, of course, reduces emissions,” he said.
Coal and gas still generate most of Australia’s electricity. The nation of 25 million people has been one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouse pollution.
But there is an undeniable shift away from fossil fuels.
Australia’s renewable energy sector is growing. It accounted for 32.5% of the country’s total electricity generation in 2021, an increase of almost 5% compared to 2020, according to the Clean Energy Council, a non-profit industry body.
Solar is Australia’s largest source of green power. The renewable energy mix includes large-scale hydropower facilities and wind farms.
The government research agency, CSIRO, has said wave energy could contribute up to 11% of Australia's electricity needs — enough to power a city the size of Melbourne — by 2050.
