Gas-fired power falls to lowest level since 2005 as Coalition pushes ahead with its ‘gas-fired recovery’

The exponential rise of renewable energy led to it providing more than 30% of Australia's electricity in 2021, while gas-fired power fell to its lowest level in 16 years.

Data collected by OpenNEM, an open source platform, shows renewable energy provided 31.4% of electricity within the national market covering the eastern states and South Australia last year. It was 32.2% in the separate West Australian grid.

The national figure has quickly surged beyond the national renewable energy target, which required electricity retailers to sell about 23% of generation from solar, wind and hydro plants by 2020.

Gas-fired power - which is being backed by the Morrison government through hundreds of millions of dollars in funding as part of what it calls a "gas-fired recovery" from the pandemic - has fallen to its lowest level of generation since 2005.

It now provides just 5.7% of the total. Its decline from a high of 12.8% seven years ago is largely attributed to its relatively high cost and the sharp increase in the amount of cheaper solar and wind energy available.

Coal-fired power provides 62.8% of electricity, its lowest level in both proportion and total amount since the interconnected national market began in 1999. Back then, it was 95.4% of grid generation.

Tim Baxter, a senior researcher with the Climate Council, said renewable energy had increased exponentially since 2018, when it was about 20% of the total share.