page_title: Electricity sector in Australia
section_title: Renewable
hierarchical_section_title: Electricity sector in Australia / Renewable
caption_attribution_description: English: Broken Hill solar plant aerial
context_page_description: The electricity sector in Australia is historically dominated by coal-fired power stations, but renewables are forming a rapidly growing fraction of supply.
  Due to its large size and the location of its population, Australia lacks a single grid that covers all states, but has a grid that extends from Queensland to Tasmania and South Australia.
  Since 2005, wind power and rooftop solar have led to a fast growing share of renewable energy in total electricity generation.
context_section_description: Renewable energy has potential in Australia, and the Climate Change Authority is reviewing the 20-percent Renewable Energy Target (RET). The production of 50 megawatts of wind power (power for nearly 21,000 homes annually) creates about 50 construction jobs and five staff positions. In recent years, wind and solar power have been the fastest growing source of energy in Australia.
  Green electricity in Australia is available from a number of green energy suppliers that supply electricity from environmentally friendly energy sources that are renewable and non-polluting.  The growth and development of the green energy industry was tracked in Australia by the ALTEX-Australia alternative energy index from 2006 to 2011.
  In Australia green energy is accredited under the GreenPower scheme whereby all distributors are government audited bi-annually to ensure that customers are getting exactly what is described in their purchased products. In the 2009 settlement period there were 904,716 GreenPower customers Australia-wide, accounting for a total of 2,194,934 MWh of electricity generation, a 10% increase over 2008. This total electricity provision was divided between  residential customers who purchased 1,001,195 MWh, and business customers who purchased 1,193,739 MWh. The largest nationwide distributors were EnergyAustralia, Origin Energy, and TRUenergy.
  By the 2014 settlement period the number of GreenPower customers Australia-wide was at 497,406, and total purchases accounted for 1,279,281 MWh.
caption: Broken Hill solar plant, New South Wales
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3980", "Image ImageLength": "2559", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "DJI", "Image Model": "FC300S", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2016:05:30 11:55:44", "Image ExifOffset": "280", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "S", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[31, 587883/10000, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[141, 114753/5000, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "646957/1000", "Image GPSInfo": "872", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1114", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4804", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "58655", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "176", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:05:23 07:43:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:05:23 07:43:21", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "290241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "No flash function", "EXIF FocalLength": "361/100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3980", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2559", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "20", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Soft", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2014031100", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[207/10, 207/10, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "20.7 mm"}