However, these man-made solar islands illustrate the physical and economic limits Japan and South Korea face while recognising they will need to rely partly on renewable energy imports. But imports from where? Preferred will be imports from countries that have extensive renewable energy resources that can be harvested and transported at reasonable cost, that are politically stable, and that have long histories as reliable energy suppliers. In other words, countries like Australia.

But how can renewable energy be exported 8000km from Australia to northeast Asia? Continue reading →

Clean Energy Australia Report 2014 states more than 230,000 households and businesses installed either solar power systems or solar hot water last year.

While this may be down on previous years;  the average size of each system installed continued to increase (nudging 4.5kW on average), thanks to the plummeting cost of solar panels, other components and increased competition.

More businesses are switching on to solar savings and by the end of 2014, 15,000 commercial enterprises across Australia had installed solar panels; collectively saving more than $64 million on their power bills.

All up, 823.42 MW capacity of residential and commercial solar installs up to 100kW occurred during 2014.

Only two large-scale solar power stations were commissioned in 2014, totaling 23.5 MW. However, 5 new plants with a collective capacity of  258.275 MW were under construction at the end of last year.

The majority of the 16 wind farms under construction in 2014 were on hold by the end of the year due to policy uncertainty. Three wind farms with a combined capacity of 566.7 megawatts were completed in 2014; Snowtown II in South Australia, Gullen Range in New South Wales and Mount Mercer in Victoria. Five wind farms remained in progress early this year and five and are expected to be completed in 2015.

By the end of 2014, there were 71 wind farms Australia-wide, consisting of 1,866 wind turbines in total and with a collective output capacity of 3807MW.

Overall, 13.47 per cent of Australia’s electricity came from renewables last year, enough to power 4.5 million average homes . While dropping from 2013 (14.76 per cent), this was mainly due to reduced rainfall in hydro catchments.

There was a huge difference in renewables use between the states – around 95 per cent of the electricity consumed in Tasmania came from renewables  last year  (primarily hydro) and approximately 40 per cent of South Australia’s power (primarily wind power). The next best was Western Australia at 13 per cent.

While investment in new large-scale renewable energy fell 88 per cent in 2014 compared to the year before due to policy uncertainty, with bipartisan backed legislation now being considered by Parliament, the CEC says the outlook for the sector is looking more positive.

The Clean Energy Australia 2014 Report was produced with the support of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and can be downloaded here (PDF).