We’re regular visitors to OpenNEM – it’s the public platform for National Energy Market data and kudos to the team for making the data accessible to everyone. What we’re looking at below is the summary of energy production by type (fossil v renewables) across all domestic markets from 1999 through to 2021 (year to date).
You can see that back in 2000, renewables (solar/hydro/wind etc) made up about 1% of total production. In 2010 it was up to 8% and in 2020 rose to over 26%.
If you compare prices, coal was $40.99 (average value/MWh) compared to $47.23 for renewables in 2000. Last year coal was $57.09 compared to renewables at $50.23. Gas in that period jumped from $55.49 to $71.67. Notable here is the price of diesel at a touch under $100 in 2000 and around $477/MWh in 2020.
And while that’s a pretty simplistic summary, it is heartening to see renewables rising to the fore. But we’ve obviously still got plenty of work to do.
