A study of historical Australian fossil fuel and renewable energy generation and usage.
The purpose of this project was to analyse historical Australian energy/electricity generation and usage data from the 1970s to present, and identify potential trends based on the use of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources.
The study utilised a variety of datasets taken from the Australian Government's Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources website. The datasets observed electrical and energy generation and usage by state, fuel-type, energy source, consumption, productivity and trade (imports and exports).
During the period of 2019–20, the total generation of electricity came from a variety of fuel-types and energy sources. These included fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas and oil, and renewable sources including hydro-electricity and solar.
As is evident in the chart above, during the period of 2019–20 the states along Austrlaia's eastern seaboard (NSW, VIC and QLD), with the inclusion of WA continued to generate a majority of their electricity from coal. This is in contrast to SA, TAS and NT, who generated a majority of their electricity from renewables, hydro-electricity and natural gas, respectively.
Overall, during the 2019–20 period the majority of electricity in Australia was generated using coal, with natural gas the second-highest fuel-type.
However, the chart above tells a slightly different story. Although coal was used to generate a majority of Australia's electricity in 2019–20, since 1994 our reliance on coal as a fuel-type used for electiricty generation has continued to decline, reaching an historical low in 2020.
Although great news for our environment, since 1994 there has been an upward trend in our reliance on natural gas as a major fuel-type used for electricity generation.
The chart above outlines state electricity generation by sector during the 2019–20 period. Overall, around 84% of Australia's electricity generation during this time was generated by the electricity sector, while the remaining 16% was generated by mining, manufacturing and other industries and households.
This share varies considerably across states and territories, with the non-electricity sector contributing over 40% of total generation in WA and NT but only 3% in Tasmania.
Furthermore, during the 2019–20 period the share of energy use by fuel-type varied dramatically.
As evident in the chart above, the eastern seaborn states of NSW, VIC and QLD continued to use electricity generated by fossil fuel sources such as coal and oil. Conversely, TAS – a state which generated a majority of its electricity from renewable sources – used an increasing amount of energy from renewable sources.
As observed in the chart above, historically there has been a overwhelming reliance on coal and oil as Australia's primary source of electricity/energy generation and usage.
In addition, the use of gas for electricity generation and use continues to climb at a higher rate compared to coal and oil. This rate is not surprising, and correlates in-line with the Morrison Government's more-recent 'gas-led recovery' policy and energy outlook.
Comparatively, the use of renewable energy sources has continued to rise over the past number of decades. As observed, although hydro-electricity continues to be the most used renewable energy source, in recent years there has been a sharp increase in the use of wind energy and solar, which may be contributed to the growing uptake of residential and commercial solar systems.
Interestingly however, our reliance on bioenergy has continued to be non-existant, with the cumulative usage rate remaining relatively stable when compared to both wind energy and solar.
In 2019–20, Australia imported around double the amount of refined products compared to international crude oil/ORF, and imported around 200 petajoules of natural gas.
Comparitively, during the same period Australia exported over 10,000 petajoules of coal, over 4,000 petajoules of natural gas, and a considerably smaller amount of coal/ORF and refined products of overseas nations.
Historically, there has been a relatively consistent trend in the ratios of energy production, consumption and net exports. Additionally, of the total energy produced, Australia continues to export more than we consume.
In 2019-20, the Australian economy contracted by 0.3% to $1.9 trillion. Additionally, energy consumption fell by 2.9% to 6,014 PJ.
Energy productivity (gross domestic product (GDP) divided by energy consumption) improved by 2.7%, and by 21% over the past ten years. Australia now creates $324 million in GDP for every petajoule of energy consumed, over $50 million more than a decade ago.
This improvement reflects cumulative improvements in energy efficiency as well as a shift in the economy away from highly energy-intensive industries like manufacturing, towards less energy-intensive industries such as services. Increased use of renewable energy instead of combustion-based generation sources for electricity generation has also had a positive impact on energy productivity.
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Electricity Generation – Renewable Sources, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-generation-renewable-sources
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Energy Consumption by fuel-type, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-consumption-fuel-type
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Energy balance, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-balance
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Energy Trade 2019–20, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-trade-2019-20
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Energy mix by state and territory, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-mix-state-and-territory-2019-20
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Energy intensity and productivity, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-energy-intensity-and-energy-productivity
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Electricity generation by industry, https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-generation-industry-2019-20
Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, 2021, Electricity generation by fuel-type, https://www.energy.gov.au/australian-electricity-generation-fuel-mix-2020