Investment in large-scale renewable projects in Australia has continued its slow trend in the third quarter of 2023 with only two new projects achieving financial commitment, according to trade body the Clean Energy Council (CEC).
Both projects involved solar PV with a combined capacity of 161MW, less than half of what Australia recorded in the previous quarter, when four projects closed financial commitments in Q2 2023 for a combined capacity of 348MW.
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In the CEC’s Renewable Projects Quarterly Report for Q3 2023, the largest project was the Munna Creek solar farm in Queensland with a capacity of 120MW, while the other one was a remote 41MW hybrid solar-wind and storage project at Jundee Mine in Western Australia.
With a combined capacity of 161MW, these two projects mark the fourth lowest total installed capacity ever recorded by the CEC, since it began tracking projects in 2017, while all three quarters of 2023 rank at the bottom five for lowest new capacity commitments since 2017.
“Calendar year 2023 is shaping up as the worst for large-scale renewable energy investment since the Clean Energy Council began tracking data in 2017,” said the CEC. The investment value for Q3 2023 was AU$150 million, and similar to the capacity volume it also represented the fourth lowest quarterly total for financial commitments since 2017.
So far this year 509MW of renewable energy projects secured financial commitments across 6 projects. This is tenfold lower than what the CEC estimated – between 5-7GW of large-scale generation per year – to be reached every year until 2030, if the Australian Government aims to reach its 82% of renewable energy target by 2030.
Moreover, the lag of projects reaching financial commitment met a similar fate in the project pipeline with only 86MW of capacity commencing construction in Q3 2023, three of which are solar PV and that includes the 41MW hybrid project in Western Australia. On the storage front, 212MW/813MWh of energy storage projects started construction in Q3.
Similar numbers for projects reaching commissioning in Q3 2023 with only one storage (250MW/250MWh) and one solar PV plant, with a 75MW installed capacity.
The latest investment numbers from the CEC showing a rather slow pace in renewables investment in Australia is in dire contrast with the Australian government’s recent backing of 32GW of renewable energy generation and energy storage, which will attempt to boost the appetite for renewables investment in the country in the coming years.
In its report, the CEC said that the average time for a solar project to go from reaching financial commitment to the final stages of commissioning takes 18 months across the states, with South Australia leading all states in terms of average, with 16 months. Overall, solar PV projects take seven months less than its onshore wind counterpart and is on par with storage.
PV Tech Power will be running a separate analysis examining the lack of investment in renewables that Australia has been suffering this year, in the upcoming edition of PV Tech Power 37, due out in December.