From around the world: Solar energy puts Australia on track to become 100% renewable
23. 8. 2025
Solar energy is driving the fastest energy transition in history. Together with wind energy, it offers unlimited, cheap, clean and reliable energy for all time.
With effective solutions to energy storage, the impossibility of depleting the necessary raw materials – despite some misconceptions in society – and Australia's accelerating transformation, solar and wind energy are becoming the superhighway to a future with 100% renewable energy.
Although the technological arguments for solar and wind energy are compelling, it is clear that renewable energy sources must overcome obstacles.
One of these is the division of opinion on the impact of introducing infrastructure for renewable energy sources.
Despite these challenges, however, solar energy offers an unlimited supply of energy for billions of years and provides the cheapest energy in history without greenhouse gas emissions, smog or water consumption.
This explains why solar energy production is growing tenfold every decade and, with the support of wind energy, dominates global power plant construction markets, while global nuclear energy production has been stagnant for 30 years and is essentially irrelevant.
In 2024, twice the capacity of new solar energy – about 560 GW – was added compared to all other systems combined. Wind, hydro, coal, gas and nuclear energy together accounted for about 280 GW.
By 2030, global solar energy capacity will exceed all other sources combined if current growth rates continue.
Solar production will surpass wind and nuclear production this year and should catch up with coal production around 2031.
Approximately 37% of Australia's electricity already comes from the sun and wind, with another 6% coming from hydroelectric power plants built decades ago.
Per capita, Australia produces more solar energy than any other country.
Solar energy is by far the best way to remove fossil fuels, which cause three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, from the economy.
In Australia, 99% of new installed capacity since 2015 has been solar and wind energy, exclusively from private sources.
The energy market clearly shows that solar and wind energy have won the energy race, and energy policy is in line with the government's target of 82% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Solar panels on the roof, combined with energy storage in a hot water tank, a battery for an electric car and a home battery, enable families to overcome gas, petrol and electricity supply disruptions, and this energy resilience can be applied at the household, city, state and national levels.
Balancing high levels of solar and wind energy to prevent supply disruptions is simple and inexpensive thanks to widely available technology from large production lines.
New transmission grids bring new solar and wind energy to cities and also balance local weather fluctuations by transferring solar and wind electricity to where it is needed.
Storage includes batteries for short-term storage of a few hours and pumped storage hydroelectric power plants for storage of several hours to days. Batteries and pumped storage hydroelectric power plants together solve energy storage problems.
Pumped storage hydroelectric power plants provide approximately 95% of global energy storage. They usually consist of two reservoirs several kilometres apart with a height difference of between 500 and 1,000 metres.
On sunny or windy days, renewable sources such as solar or wind energy are used to pump water into the upper reservoir, and at night the water flows back down through a turbine to recover the stored energy.
The same water can rise and fall between the reservoirs for 100 years. The global energy storage potential of pumped storage hydroelectric power plants is equivalent to two trillion batteries for electric cars.
Australia has about 300 times more energy storage potential in pumped storage hydroelectric power plants than is needed to cover 100% of its electricity consumption from renewable sources. It already has three pumped storage hydroelectric power plants and two more are under construction.
Globally, there are more than 820,000 potential sites for pumped storage hydroelectric power plants, which is about 200 times more than we need to ensure a 100% renewable energy system.
With effective solutions to energy storage, the impossibility of depleting the necessary raw materials – despite some misconceptions in society – and Australia's accelerating transformation, solar and wind energy are becoming the superhighway to a future with 100% renewable energy.
Although the technological arguments for solar and wind energy are compelling, it is clear that renewable energy sources must overcome obstacles.
One of these is the division of opinion on the impact of introducing infrastructure for renewable energy sources.
Despite these challenges, however, solar energy offers an unlimited supply of energy for billions of years and provides the cheapest energy in history without greenhouse gas emissions, smog or water consumption.
This explains why solar energy production is growing tenfold every decade and, with the support of wind energy, dominates global power plant construction markets, while global nuclear energy production has been stagnant for 30 years and is essentially irrelevant.
In 2024, twice the capacity of new solar energy – about 560 GW – was added compared to all other systems combined. Wind, hydro, coal, gas and nuclear energy together accounted for about 280 GW.
By 2030, global solar energy capacity will exceed all other sources combined if current growth rates continue.
Solar production will surpass wind and nuclear production this year and should catch up with coal production around 2031.
Approximately 37% of Australia's electricity already comes from the sun and wind, with another 6% coming from hydroelectric power plants built decades ago.
Per capita, Australia produces more solar energy than any other country.
Solar energy is by far the best way to remove fossil fuels, which cause three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, from the economy.
In Australia, 99% of new installed capacity since 2015 has been solar and wind energy, exclusively from private sources.
The energy market clearly shows that solar and wind energy have won the energy race, and energy policy is in line with the government's target of 82% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Solar panels on the roof, combined with energy storage in a hot water tank, a battery for an electric car and a home battery, enable families to overcome gas, petrol and electricity supply disruptions, and this energy resilience can be applied at the household, city, state and national levels.
Balancing high levels of solar and wind energy to prevent supply disruptions is simple and inexpensive thanks to widely available technology from large production lines.
New transmission grids bring new solar and wind energy to cities and also balance local weather fluctuations by transferring solar and wind electricity to where it is needed.
Storage includes batteries for short-term storage of a few hours and pumped storage hydroelectric power plants for storage of several hours to days. Batteries and pumped storage hydroelectric power plants together solve energy storage problems.
Pumped storage hydroelectric power plants provide approximately 95% of global energy storage. They usually consist of two reservoirs several kilometres apart with a height difference of between 500 and 1,000 metres.
On sunny or windy days, renewable sources such as solar or wind energy are used to pump water into the upper reservoir, and at night the water flows back down through a turbine to recover the stored energy.
The same water can rise and fall between the reservoirs for 100 years. The global energy storage potential of pumped storage hydroelectric power plants is equivalent to two trillion batteries for electric cars.
Australia has about 300 times more energy storage potential in pumped storage hydroelectric power plants than is needed to cover 100% of its electricity consumption from renewable sources. It already has three pumped storage hydroelectric power plants and two more are under construction.
Globally, there are more than 820,000 potential sites for pumped storage hydroelectric power plants, which is about 200 times more than we need to ensure a 100% renewable energy system.