Australia could be at 99 pct renewables by 2032, if green exports take off as hoped

Australia is surging towards a grid dominated overwhelmingly by renewables, mostly large scale wind and solar with an important cameo from rooftop PV.

But the question remains about how much, and how quick.

The Australian Energy Market Operator’s latest 30 year planning blueprint, the draft 2024 Integrated System Plan, is in line with the federal government’s target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, despite some significant potential roadblocks in construction, connections, and getting supplies and social licence for new projects.

It’s the question of what happens next that is intriguing. AEMO’s draft 2024 ISP contains three scenarios – progressive change (ranked most likely by 42 per cent of its experts), step change (43 per cent) and green exports (15 per cent).

The green exports scenario – the belief that Australia can carve a major market in the global energy system with green hydrogen, green ammonia and green commodities such as green iron – predicts that the share of renewables will be 99 per cent as early as 2032 – less than a decade away.

It suggests it will continue that way into the future, reaching 100 per cent renewables in the early 2040s. It would require vast amounts of wind and solar – huge gigawatt scale projects built in remote areas – and more transmission to deliver them to the grid.

Even though the scale of such a build out may seem improbably now, it is essentially the stated plans of the likes of billionaires Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, and the federal government’s vision of Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower.

This graph above underlines the sheer scale of what might be contemplated if this scenario came to pass, while the table below details AEMO’s modelling of renewable market shares, by year, according to the three different scenarios.

To put this into some context, Australia’s main grid the National Electricity Market, averages just below 40 per cent renewables over the last 12 months.

The peak share of renewables of instantaneous generation is just over 72 per cent, although AEMO is expecting some periods of 100 per cent renewables might be accommodated as early as 2025, if it can address some key engineering issues relating to grid stability.