If the present pace of investment continues all throughout this year, Australia may beat the 2020 Renewable Energy Target. As of last week, the Australian Energy Regulator released a new report which it showed that their renewable energy target which involves sourcing approximately 3300 GWh of renewable energy by 2020 is achievable and that if the present pace of investment continues this 2017. The report also stated that this progress has gone up at the end of 2016 and into early 2017.
Also, a number of new renewable energy projects were announced last year and these projects showed an increase in the amount of large scale renewable power generation being funded last year. Although these projects are good, the AER stated that for progress to be satisfactory, a total capacity of 3 GW of new power stations are needed. But that being said, only 1350 megawatts of new capacity was committed.
It is also expected in the coming years that the demand and supply will be tight and an estimated 3 gigawatts and 1 gigawatt will be committed in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
The issue lies in being able to extract these projects and deliver them on time and make the renewable energy certificates available to electricity retailers to meet their obligations in the near future.