A Review of Renewable Energy Sources in Australia

Abstract

Australia's electricity system is being rebuilt at speed. Renewables supplied 36 per cent of national generation in 2024, led by solar at 18 per cent, onshore wind at 12 per cent and hydro at 5 per cent. The National Electricity Market reached a record 43 per cent renewable share in the first quarter of 2025. The pace of variable renewable build-out has nevertheless outstripped parallel investment in firming, storage and transmission. A structural asymmetry now sits at the centre of the transition challenge.

This thesis brings the dispersed Australian evidence into a single comparative frame. A PRISMA 2020 systematic review of 2,322 records produced 32 included studies published between January 2015 and October 2025. The search spanned Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar, complemented by ten authoritative grey literature sources including AEMO, CSIRO and DCCEEW. Cost data were harmonised to Australian dollars at 2024 prices. Nine technologies were synthesised: solar photovoltaic, onshore and offshore wind, hydro, pumped hydro, biomass, geothermal, wave, and hydrogen for power.

Three findings stand out. First, no single technology combines low cost, abundant resources, low impact and high scalability; the Australian portfolio must be a deliberately diversified mix. Second, insufficient transmission build-out is the most likely binding constraint on the transition between 2026 and 2030. Third, storage strategy should diversify across durations instead of optimising for any single technology.

Thirteen prioritised recommendations follow, spanning technical, policy and research categories mapped onto short-term, medium-term and long-term horizons through 2040. The principal contribution lies in the harmonised evidence base itself and in reframing the integration challenge as a system-level portfolio problem over a sequence of technology-specific questions.