Plans by the federal government for Australia to generate more than four-fifths of its power from renewable sources by 2030 are coming under pressure amid claims the country is way off track.

Renewable energy advisory Nexa has joined global analyst Rystad Energy in finding Australia’s green energy share is likely to be barely 60 per cent by the end of the decade under the current rate of progress.

As part of ambitious plans unveiled last year, the federal government has set a renewable electricity target of 82 per cent by 2030.

Australia currently generates between 30 and 35 per cent of its power from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro power.

The forecasts that Australia will undershoot the goal come as resistance grows to a number of major high-voltage power lines that backers say are essential to connecting ever greater amounts of wind and solar generation.

Opponents of planned transmission lines in Victoria have stepped up their attacks on the proposals, which they claim would cause needless social and environmental damage while saddling consumers with billions in extra costs.

At the same time, calls are growing louder for some ageing coal-fired power stations to be kept open for longer to ensure a shortfall in new green energy does not jeopardise the stability of the grid.

Tony Wood, the director of the Grattan Institute’s energy program, said it was looking increasingly unlikely Australia would be able to hit its 2030 target.

“On the current trajectory, we’re going to fall short,” Mr Wood said.

“We’re already halfway through 2023.

Money ‘not the problem’

According to Mr Wood, delays holding up the construction of high-voltage power lines are at the heart of Australia’s slowing progress.

He noted that a key plank of the federal government’s renewable energy agenda was its so-called rewiring the nation scheme, which had set aside $20 billion in low-cost loans to help kickstart the development of transmission lines.

However, Mr Wood said the policy looked incapable of solving the underlying problem.

“Rewiring the Nation Corporation is an interesting idea because the idea there was to provide low-cost finance,” he said.

“But low-cost finance isn’t the problem.

“There’s plenty of money around.

“The problem is approvals.”

In a recent report, energy analysts Nexa Advisory found about 60 per cent of the electricity generated in Australia’s biggest grid was likely to be renewable by 2030, based on the current trajectory.

Rystad Energy, a global consultancy headquartered in Norway, forecasts “that just 64 per cent” of Australia’s electricity will be renewable by the end of the decade under a “business-as-usual approach”.

David Dixon, the firm’s vice-president of Australian renewable energy research, said congestion in the transmission network was throttling the country’s ability to achieve its goals.

Mr Dixon said Australia needed to add about four gigawatts of large-scale wind and solar power a year to meet its target – the equivalent of two large coal-fired generators.

But he said the country was falling short of the required pace, hindered by a lack of transmission and storage capacity to soak up and move around excess electricity.

Policy changes needed: Rystad

What’s more, he said Australia’s renewable energy output would continue to be stifled so long as the grid ran largely on coal-fired power.

While coal plants could be turned down to accommodate surges in wind and solar power at windy and sunny times, he said they typically had to run at between 30 and 50 per cent of their maximum output for technical reasons.

“This results in the curtailment of renewables, which could otherwise generate more power,” Mr Dixon said.

For Mr Dixon, governments could pursue relatively straightforward policy changes that could help to ease some of the pressure on Australia’s transition.

Among these were moving the subsidies flowing to households to install rooftop solar panels to instead encourage them to fit batteries.

He said this would “stimulate demand for battery storage to soak up excess rooftop solar generation and reduce peak demand in the evening”.

“The current economics favour installing rooftop solar only,” he said.

On top of this, Mr Dixon said there needed to be more certainty for investors looking to build large-scale batteries, suggesting this could be done via “auctions to de-congest the existing transmission network”.

In the absence of such measures, he said governments may be left with few other options than to delay the closure of coal-fired power plants such as Origin’s giant 2880MW Eraring, which is the country’s single biggest generator.

Eraring is scheduled for closure in August 2025, but NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe is coming under increasing pressure to keep at least some of the plant online in a move that would reportedly cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

“In short, if we are unable to construct adequate transmission, firming, and renewable capacity before the scheduled coal plant closures, it would be reasonable to delay the retirements of coal generators,” Mr Dixon said.

Developer interest ‘massive’

Marija Petkovic, the boss of consultancy Energy Synapse, said the sputtering nature of Australia’s transition had nothing to do with investor enthusiasm.

Ms Petkovic noted there was “massive” interest from developers keen to build generation, storage and transmission projects.

She pointed to a pipeline of proposed wind and solar projects amounting to 150GW of capacity as evidence of the money “lining up” to be invested in Australia’s move to renewable energy.

It was a similar story with batteries, with projects totalling about 50GW on the drawing boards.

“Obviously, not all these projects will be built,” Ms Petkovic said.

“Throughout their development process, companies might decide that they might not be feasible or they might not be in the best spot.

“But given that these numbers are huge what it does show is there is massive interest in building these projects from the renewable energy sector.

“The challenge is it’s simply taking too long from conception to construction and having these projects be operational.”

Ms Petkovic said the time it was taking for projects to be approved and connected to the grid was the most significant “bottleneck” jamming up Australia’s transition.

Governments facing ‘choices’

She said it was here – rather than the provision of money – where governments could make the biggest difference.

“If they could accelerate that process, we would be seeing these projects come online much faster,” she said.

“It’s a huge task that’s ahead of us, especially when you think of how much transmission has to go into the grid to hit that target.”

Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has maintained the government can meet the 2030 target, saying it was “ambitious … but achievable”.

During a recent visit to Japan, Mr Bowen acknowledged the difficulties facing the government, but insisted it was not about to abandon its goals.

“This is a hard task,” Mr Bowen said.

“It’s a little fashionable in Australia to say it’s too hard, that we won’t lift from 35 per cent renewable energy today to 82 per cent by 2030.

“I completely acknowledge it’s a big job with many road bumps on the way. Of course it is.

“If it was easy, someone else would have done it.”

Mr Wood queried whether governments may eventually have to make difficult decisions about whether to step in and force through controversial projects such as transmission lines.

“They’ve got a choice,” Mr Wood said.