Welcome to the May 2019 issue of the NEEA Electricity Update, with data updated to the end of February 2019. The Electricity Update presents data on electricity demand, electricity supply, and electricity generation emissions in the National Electricity Market (NEM), plus electricity demand in the South West Interconnected System (SWIS). In this issue we focus particularly on how various states in eh NEM are progressing towards higher shares of renewable generation, and also take a state by state look at the contribution rooftop solar generation is making to total consumption of electrical energy.

Key points:

• Australia’s national energy emissions are down 21% since 2008, due to growth of renewables and declining demand. Emissions from Australia’s electricity sector continue to decline. They are 21% below 2008 levels, even lower than the lowest emissions of the carbon price period. This reduction is due to the rise of renewable energy and three years of gradual reduction in total demand for electricity. The rise of renewables (Figure 6) is mostly due to the rise in solar and wind (Figure 13).
• Victoria is on track to meet its interim renewables target of 25% by 2020. It is currently at 21%, up nearly 4% in 12 months.
• Wind generation has overtaken hydro generation for the first time. A significant milestone was reached in April 2019; total annual wind generation was larger than total annual hydro generation for the first time.
• South Australia renewables leader, shares rooftop solar honours with Queensland. South Australia is the leading state NEM region for clean energy, at over 50% of total electricity generated. South Australia also has the highest proportion of rooftop solar 8.7% of total generation over 12 months. Queensland is the leader in solar households in absolute terms, with 3.1 TWh generated in the year to April 2019.