Six clean technologies already in use in Australia have been named in a new report as providing the opportunity to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 81 per cent over the next five years.
The report, Deploy – Ambitious cleantech rollout to cut emissions and build a prosperous Australian economy, released by think tank Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) outlines the steps Australia can take to dramatically cut emissions on the back of just six current technologies: wind turbines and solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, electrolysers and electric vehicles with chargers.
BZE chief executive, Heidi Lee, said the ambitious target is achievable and supported by more than 50 companies who are already getting on with the job.
“Australia can cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 81 per cent by 2030 with a rapid rollout of technologies we’re already using and the help of carbon drawdown initiatives,” Ms Lee said.
“We’ve already shown we can lead the world in the deployment of renewable energy technology. We have the highest proportion of solar generation in our energy mix at 12 per cent supported by more than a quarter of households generating power on their roofs.
“Australia has doubled its rollout of domestic solar generation over the past five years and our plan now requires us to double down on utility solar, wind and energy storage.
“If we take this approach to other renewable technologies we won’t just meet our legislated emission reduction targets, we’ll go well beyond them.”
The plan relies on increasing rollout rates of these six key technologies over the next five years.
The report detailed the need for major increases in rollout rates to the tune of:
- Two times for solar panels (from household to utility scale)
- Four times for wind turbines (generating grid-scale energy)
- Five times for energy storage, including batteries (from household to utility scale)
- 14x for electric vehicles and chargers (passenger vehicles, buses, utes and vans, trucks, farm machinery and mining equipment) and 1.2 million chargers
- 37x for heat pumps for water heaters, air conditioning and industrial heat.
“It’s ambitious but achievable, and Australian businesses are ready to rise to the challenge,” Ms Lee said.
“Our research shows Australians that emissions cutting technologies are here, we’re using them and there’s no reason why they can’t be scaled up to help us cut emissions, create jobs and lay the economic foundations for modern and competitive export industries.”
The full report can be downloaded here.
