In some rare good news for the planet, a new report released today shows that Australia is now producing enough renewable energy to power 70 percent of all households in the country.

What’s more, the 46 large-scale renewable energy projects under construction at the end of the 2016-17 financial year will create enough jobs to employ an estimated 8,868 people full-time for a year — a figure the report’s author Tristan Edis hopes will help combat the public’s anxiety over job losses due to the closure of coal-fired power stations like Hazelwood in Victoria.

The Renewable Energy Index report, released by research and advisory business Green Energy Markets, with funding from GetUp, is the first instalment of a new monthly series of reports on renewable energy’s contribution to Australia.

Edis told Junkee that in addition to providing more regular updates than currently exist, the report aims to make data on the renewable energy sector accessible to the average Australian – “rather than rabbiting on about megawatt hours, we’ve tried to put it in metrics the public can get their heads around, like number of households powered, and number of cars removed from the road,” he said.  

“It helps people come to grips with the fact that this is actually a significant source of power, capable of producing large amounts of power here and now.”  

“This stuff works, and it’s making a difference.”

Dr. Gareth Bryant, a lecturer in environmental political economy at the University of Sydney, told Junkee the new report’s accessible terminology “makes a welcome contribution to debates over energy and climate policy in Australia”, though he did caution readers to make sure they paid attention to the specific metrics involved.

“Using measures such as ‘numbers of households’ risks misrepresenting the problem because it excludes big industrial users of electricity. Australia’s four aluminium smelters, for example, use as much electricity as millions of Australian households.”

On the whole, though, Dr. Bryant welcomed the report for highlighting information usually “buried in mountains of data on government websites”.

“It will be useful to have some more accessible statistics for non-expert readers,” he said.

Hit Me With The Good News

The report highlights a number of encouraging figures for the renewables sector in Australia. It estimates the amount of carbon pollution avoided by using renewable energy in the past year to be equivalent to taking 8.1 million cars off the road — more than half of the cars in Australia.

It also highlights a boom in rooftop solar installations, with 150,000 small-scale systems installed in the 2016-17 financial year. The systems installed in the last year alone are set to deliver an estimated $1.6 billion in power bill savings over the next decade, which works out at around $10,000 for each household with a solar panel system. 

And then there are those figures on the jobs the renewables sector is creating. Edis is particularly keen to get these stats out there, to combat widespread media coverage that generates anxiety whenever a coal plant closes.

“When Hazelwood shut, you saw wall-to-wall coverage of people losing their jobs. I remember one of the images that stood out was a bunch of hard hats hanging on a wire fence. That was a very compelling image, and I can understand people being concerned about people losing their jobs.”

“But there’s a counterweight to this that people need to be aware of — there are jobs on the other side of this transition that are going to be created. And we can keep this going for another 15-20 years, as we roll out renewable energy and other infrastructure like battery systems. Renewables can provide a long term source of employment.”

But The Government Needs To Act To Keep Things This Way

But there’s a problem (isn’t there always?): the Government needs to act pretty soon to keep all this investment in renewable energy going.

Edis says the current renewable energy boom follows a pretty scary period where “the sector went dead, and investment stopped” under Tony Abbott.

“It was a matter of language,” Edis told Junkee. “Tony Abbott made a series of comments suggesting renewable energy was a waste of time, driving up people’s bills. He let other members of government go out there and rubbish renewable energy.”

do we reckon lizardy old reactionaries are scared of renewable energy because it's too close to post-scarcity

— gamer dad (@marrowing) August 27, 2017

Under Malcolm Turnbull, that language shifted, and investors began to regain confidence. But Edis says another key part of the current investment boom is policy — “a requirement on power companies to achieve a certain amount of renewable energy in the power mix” that exists under the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which aims to see 23.5 percent of Australia’s electricity generation come from renewable sources by 2020.

The problem is that the RET concludes in 2020, and the Government is currently very torn over implementing new targets for the future, despite a strong recommendation to do so from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel.

As Edis puts it, “the language isn’t going to do the job beyond the existing renewable energy target, which runs out in 2020. We’ve got to see the emissions reduction target converted into concrete legislation that forces companies to do something. They’re not going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts.”

Dr. Bryant affirmed the need for government action, pointing out that while renewables have made progress in Australia, “the rate has been far too slow” to address the broader problem of climate change.

“The report found that almost half the renewable energy in Australia comes from hydro, yet most of Australia’s hydropower assets were built decades ago, so they don’t represent any recent growth. Achieving 100 percent renewables before the planet cooks requires a much more rapid transformation of the energy sector than we are currently experiencing,” he told Junkee.

In order to achieve that rapid transformation, Dr. Bryant suggested that the Government consider a range of policy options, going beyond a Clean Energy Target alone.

“The Clean Energy Target is not the only option because it will keep Australia burning coal and gas. The government built our existing fossil fuel energy system, and could do so again with renewables,” he said. “Reducing demand for electricity, not only from households, but also big corporate users, is also an important piece of the puzzle.”

What Can The Public Do?

Edis’s hope is that the Renewable Energy Index reports will help people get their heads around the benefits of renewables in time to put pressure on politicians to support new targets.

“I think the key thing is you need to make your voice heard, and make sure politicians know you’re supportive of policy like a Clean Energy Target.”

He also hopes the report’s figures on the success (and associated savings) of rooftop solar will continue to drive the installation of systems. “Investing in solar is making a material difference,” he told Junkee. “If you’ve already done it that’s great, if you’re thinking about doing it, it’s time.” 

If you’re interested in getting in touch with your MP about the report’s findings, GetUp has an online form that makes it very easy to do here. If you’d like to read the full report, it’s available here.