Northern Territory’s renewable energy target efforts lag behind rest of country

Think-tank Climate Council of Australia has found of all the state’s and territories, the Northern Territory has the most work to do to achieve its renewable energy target of 50% by 2030.

September 4, 2024 Ev Foley

Image: Queensland Energy and Climate

The Climate Council of Australia Race to the Top: Australia’s Clean Energy Momentum report finds the Northern Territory (NT) has to increase it’s renewable sourced electricity by 42.3% to achieve its energy target of 50% by 2030.

The NT lags behind the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Tasmania and South Australia (SA) which are in the top three for sourcing electricity from clean energy.

Canberra can claim 100%, Tasmania, 98% and SA, 74%, followed by New South Wales (NSW), 36%, Queensland, 27%, Western Australia (WA), 18% and while the NT is sourcing just 6.7% of electricity from renewable sources.

Queensland has the lion’s share of houses with rooftop solar at 50.2% compared to the state with the lowest uptake, Tasmania’s 21%, while houses with rooftop solar and a battery are comparatively low nationwide with NSW, Victoria and Queensland all at 0.9% and SA with the highest uptake at 2.9%.

NSW gets 35.6% of its electricity generated from renewable sources, and 34.7% of houses have rooftop solar but analysis suggests there is significant potential for more commercial and industrial rooftop solar in the state.

The Climate Council’s Race to the Top report outlines electricity sourced from renewables Australia’s states and territories.
*Image: Climate Council of Australia*

Victoria’s share of electricity generated from renewable sources is 40.1%, with just under one third of houses using rooftop solar but less than 1%, include a residential battery.

Battery uptake in Queensland is equally as low at 0.9% despite almost a million rooftop solar systems in use and which adds more capacity than all of Queensland’s publicly owned coal-fired power generators combined.

A total of 74.4% of electricity in SA is already sourced from renewables and for pairing rooftop solar and batteries, the state leads the nation. The report also says in the past 12 months, renewables provided 100% of SA’s energy needs for 26 days, and more than 90% on 57 days.

Third behind Queensland and SA for rooftop solar installations is Western Australia where 44.6% of households use the technology, but compared to the rest of the country, a 17.6% share of electricity from renewable sources is low.

Pushing the clean energy envelope is Tasmania, where more than 75% of its electricity is generated from hydro, 98.2% of the state’s electricity is generated by renewables.

Since 2020, the ACT has been powered by 100% renewable electricity and has achieved its renewable energy targets.

Renewable energy targets by 2030 are varied, ranging from no target (WA) to 100% by 2027 (SA) or 2030 (Tasmania), and 2035 targets ranging from none (WA, NSW, NT), to 80% (Queensland) and 95% (Victoria).

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