Australia’s Renewable Energy Race: 2024 Progress, 2030 Hurdles, and the Skills Challenge

The story to date is increasingly positive though.

• Renewables generated 39.4% of Australian electricity in 2023, more than double that in 2017 when large-scale investment began to accelerate.
• Australia leads the world in per capita uptake for rooftop solar, capitalising on the natural resource with over 4 million systems totalling 20GW installed on homes and small businesses. In 2023 alone, rooftop solar added 3.1 GW of capacity and systems are increasingly being paired with batteries. Nearly 75,000 home batteries were installed in 2024, compared to 46,000 in 2023.
• Continued progress is underpinned by policy framework. The 2030 target is both clear and ambitious with a longer term target of net zero emissions by 2050. And the federal government has established key supporting policies like the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), designed to underwrite revenue for new projects, and establishing Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) to help drive the transition at the state level.
• Energy storage, in particular, is attracting record investment reflecting the critical need for grid firming capacity. 2023 saw $4.9 billion committed to large-scale batteries, followed by 4,029 MW / 11,348 MWh new project commitments in 2024.

The picture for large, utility-scale projects is more complex. While 2.8 GW of utility-scale solar and wind capacity came online in 2023 (projects committed earlier), new financial investment commitments plummeted that year to just $1.5 billion, down from $6.5 billion in 2022. No new onshore wind projects reached financial close in 2023.

Investment rebounded in 2024 with total commitments for large-scale generation and storage hitting $9 billion, the best result since 2018. This recovery suggests that policies like the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) are having a positive impact. Energy storage, in particular, is attracting record investment, with $4.9 billion committed to large-scale batteries in 2023 alone, reflecting the critical need for grid firming capacity.
 

Major Hurdles on the Road to 2030

Despite the 2024 investment uptick, achieving the 82% target requires overcoming persistent barriers. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) estimates we need to add at least 6 GW of utility-scale capacity annually, more than double the 2.8 GW brought online in 2023. Key obstacles include:

• Grid Constraints: Connecting new projects to the existing network is often slow, complex, and costly.
• Approval Bottlenecks: Lengthy and inconsistent planning and environmental approval processes across different jurisdictions delay projects significantly.
• Transmission Delays: Building the thousands of kilometres of new high-voltage transmission lines needed to connect renewable energy zones is lagging.
• Social Licence: Gaining community acceptance for new infrastructure, especially transmission lines, is crucial but increasingly challenging.
• Costs and Supply Chains: Rising project costs, supply chain disruptions, and global competition for components add further pressure.

People Power – The Critical Skills Imperative

Perhaps the most significant practical barrier is resourcing projects with the talented specialists required to deliver projects. And the challenge exists for both key leadership roles as well as skilled labour.
 

Experienced specialists in newer technologies

Pioneering technologies typically require a rare or novel skillset. For example development managers must combine technical expertise, project management, and environmental knowledge.

Expats and overseas talent

With emerging technology areas like BESS and data centres, finding specialists in Australia who have end-to-end experience with renewable energy projects, often means bringing in expats with relevant leadership experience.

Australia has always been an attractive destination for expats, with a great lifestyle, liveable cities, English-speaking environment, free healthcare, and good schooling, without having to pay for expensive international schools.

On the other hand, Australia must compete with popular expat destinations like Korea and Taiwan, which may offer higher salaries and housing as part of an expat compensation package.
 

The shortage of skilled workers

The scale of the required workforce expansion is immense – Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) estimates a need for nearly two million building and engineering trades workers by 2050 for the net zero transition.

Critical occupations are already in short supply. JSA projected a need for 32,000 additional electricians by 2030, while the Powering Skills Organisation estimates a shortfall of 17,400 critical energy sector electrical workers by then, as well as Engineers across multiple disciplines.

These shortages risk project delivery and could delay the entire transition. Addressing this requires urgent, coordinated efforts in training, apprenticeships, skilled migration, and attracting a more diverse workforce.

The race to 2030 and beyond

Australia has demonstrated significant renewable energy potential and progress. However, reaching the ambitious 82% target by 2030 demands more than just momentum. It requires sustained policy certainty through mechanisms like the CIS, accelerated infrastructure development (particularly transmission), streamlined regulatory processes, and a laser focus on building the teams to make projects a reality.

For us at Taylor Hopkinson, it’s this last part where we spend our attention. Over the past 15 years, we’ve helped clients overcome these resourcing problems as renewables technologies ripple around the world. The key hires to lead projects typically require complex skillsets that simply aren’t yet established in newer markets. Filling these roles often requires us to look deep into our network. We need to search amongst countries further along the adoption curve to find individuals with the required real-world experience.

Decarbonising the energy industry is a generation-defining project. It’s a huge undertaking with huge headwinds to face. But for renewables, that’s a challenge we’ve been overcoming around the world for decades now. With continued commitment from policy-makers and influencers in the industry, we can forge ahead and turn the Australian clean energy vision into reality.