According to an article written by Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s Environment and Energy Minister, the Clean Energy Regulator has released their 2016 report that details Australia’s progress toward reaching its 2020 renewable energy target. This is good news.
Investments in large-scale renewables in 2016 was at a record high, which is 5x greater than 2015. Also, more than $4B has been committed over the last year, which will add over 2000 megawatts of capacity to the grid in time.
With the 98 new power plants that were accredited in 2016, 86 of them were solar. This shows the rapidly declining cost and increased capacity of photovoltaics.
The small-scale renewable investment was also strong with 182,000 new installations last year, and many of those installations were in regional areas. There are now 2.6 million small-scale renewable systems across the country and covers nearly 15% of Australian homes.
These home rooftop panels and household hot water systems generate over 5,000 megawatts of power. That is nearly twice as Australia’s largest power station.
Click here to read the full story on Australia Financial Review