Federal funding in 2024 underwrites South Australia's path to have 100% renewables energy output by 2027

South Australian projects in the pipeline in 2024 propelled the state towards 80% renewables emergy output over the next year, while an extra of 1,000MW of wind and solar, 400MW of battery capacity (plus the minimum 200MW in project proposals covered by federal government funding) would take it towards 100% net renewables by 2027.

South Australia locked in federal government funding in 2024 to ensure it became the first non-hydro grid in the world to reach 100% net renewables based around wind and solar.

The funding deal – through a Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement – meant that the federal government would underwrite a minimum one gigawatt of new wind and solar generation capacity and another 400MW megawatts and 1,600MWh (megawatt hours) of storage to ensure it mets its target of 100% net renewables by 2027.

South Australia already led Australia – and the world – with a wind and solar share of around 70% over 2023-24 The extra capacity, with the new Project Energy Connect transmission link from New South Wales, would enable it to become the world’s first to reach 100% net renewables through wind and solar. That didn’t mean it would be powered at all times by wind and solar. But the wind and solar generated and stored each year would equal what it consumed each year. The state would export power at times and import at other times, and fall back on peaking gas plants to fill in the gaps.

Federal government energy and climate minister Chris Bowen says the signing of the Renewable Energy Transformation Agreement meant South Australia was the first Australian state to lock in the funding needed to meet its targets under the federal government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS). The scheme aimed to contract an additional 32GW (gigawatts) of renewable generation and storage across Australia to help deliver 82% renewable energy target by 2032. The first tender of six gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity was flooded with interest as more than 40 gigawatts of projects showed interest while the first storage tender – for 600MW, 2,400MWh in Victoria and South Australia – was also heavily oversubscribed with 19 gigawatts of proposals.

Welcoming the 2024 agreement with the federal government, South Australian government energy minister Tom Koutsantonis said the government had recently brought forwards its renewable energy target by three years.

After a two-years gap in new South Australian wind and solar projects, its biggest wind project, the 412MW Goyder South wind farm in the mid north, was ready to send its first power to the grid in 2024.  New battery projects were also being built at Blyth, Hallett, Clements Gap and Templers and another, Tailem Bend, was waiting to be commissioned. These projects would help propel the state towards 80% renewables over the next year, while an extra of 1,000MW of wind and solar, 400MW of battery capacity (plus the minimum 200MW included in CIS auction) would take it towards 100 % net renewables by 2027.

South Australia was also building the world’s first green hydrogen power plant at Whyalla, to have a 250MW green hydrogen electrolyser and storage, also to be the world’s biggest.

• Information from Giles Parkinson of the Renew Economy website