Solar’s ten-year growth outshines all energy generation sources: new data

The Australian government’s Energy Update 2024 shows solar electricity generation grew 21% in the 2022-23 period and is 11 times higher than a decade ago, jumping 3% in each of the past two years.

August 29, 2024 Ev Foley

Image: EnergyCo

Released by the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Australian Energy Update (AEU) 2024, finds on average solar generation has the largest growth of all renewable energy sources over 10 years at 27%, compared to the growth of wind (14.7%) and biogas (2.7%).

The data, compiled by Australian Energy Statistics (AES), found solar also generated the lion’s share of all renewables at 27.3% compared to wind’s 20.4% and hydro 10.8%.

Brown coal, black coal and gas all declined over the past decade in terms of growth by 4%, 1.5% and 0.4%, respectively.

The AEU says solar and wind energy use have grown rapidly in the past decade, and combined were 52% of all renewable energy consumption in 2022–23, up from 17%.

“Solar has grown from negligible levels in the mid-2000s to 151 petajoules in 2022–23, growing 21% in the most recent year. In addition to ongoing rooftop solar expansion, the last six years have seen large-scale solar power generation grow more than 20-fold,” the latest AEU says.

Energy consumption in the electricity supply sector fell in most Australian states and territories due to the replacement of thermal generation sources with non-thermal renewables but was displaced most prominently by solar power in New South Wales (NSW), South Australia (SA) and Queensland, and wind in Victoria.

Cumulative capacity of accredited large-scale solar power stations.“Solar power has been the largest contributor to renewable generation since 2019–20, and grew fastest again in 2022–23, widening the gap between solar power and wind generation. Solar accounted for 45% of all renewable generation and for 15% of total electricity generation in Australia,” the AEU says.

“Large-scale, or utility-scale, generation has grown especially quickly in recent years, rising from nearly nothing about a decade ago.”

The renewable energy share of generation in 2023 was 98% in Tasmania and 74% in SA. In Tasmania, 77% of all generation was hydro, while in SA, wind accounted for 44% of generation and solar another 30%.

NSW and Queensland were the main producers of large-scale solar electricity with 39 and 37% of Australia’s utility scale solar power respectively. They were also the leading producers of small-scale solar electricity (29 and 28% respectively).

Total electricity generation in Australia rose 1% in 2022-23 to around 274 TWh, which includes industrial onsite generation, rooftop solar and off-grid generation.

In the same period renewable generation increased 11%, contributing 34% of total generation or 93 TWh, up three percentage points, while accounting for 37% in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

In 2024, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEM)) confirmed 40% of electricity in the NEM is sourced from renewables, a further 3% increase in 12 months.

About 20% of the country’s electricity was generated outside the electricity supply sector, including 9% from small-scale solar.

Generation by fuel type sees solar in third place in 2022-23 by producing 41,969 GWh, behind black coal (96,174 GWh) and gas (48,865 GWh) but ahead of brown coal (31,459 GWh) and oil (4,864 GWh).

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