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    Australia’s grid now relies on renewable energy as much as coal. Those who doubted it look foolish
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    Australia’s grid now relies on renewable energy as much as coal. Those who doubted it look foolish


    Australia’s grid now relies on renewable energy as much as coal. Those who doubted it look foolish

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/31/australias-grid-now-relies-on-renewable-energy-as-much-as-coal-those-who-doubted-it-look-foolish

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    18 Comments

    1. CertainCertainties on

      The multinational corporations who profit gouge our power bills are mad as hell that guys like Garry, the neighbour down the road, has installed a big arse battery and is providing peak power to the grid when we’re cooking dinner.

    3. wncogjrjs on

      The power companies will be getting their money one way or another unfortunately I think.

      Probably through large increases in the daily supply fixed charges.

    5. 22oldforthisshit on

      Can we please name and shame the very vocal people that have been proven wrong? Let’s be clear about this, they knew they were wrong the whole time. 

    6. TheWarriorSeagull on

      I know. Idiots in my area constantly blame renewables when the power companies gouge them on their bills.

    7. yedrellow on

      Energy is now expensive and relies on load balancing that didn’t used to need to exist. That expensive energy has stifled productivity and contributed to inflation.

    8. Tyrx on

      Generation does not equal demand. Solar and wind get dispatched first, and while coal’s percentage share has fallen and quarterly coal output dipped in late 2025, the full 2025 dataset hasn’t been published yet so we can’t actually confirm that total annual coal generation has dropped.

      We already know coal generated on the order of 128 TWh in 2024, and its absolute output has been broadly flat to rising year-on-year despite a falling share. Articles like this claiming “renewables match coal” are also being selective and only cite midday or high-solar periods, not system-wide generation across evenings, winters, or peak demand, where coal still carries most of the load.

      We still have a long way to go before anyone can claim Australia’s grid relies on renewables as much as coal.

    9. a_cold_human on

      >Back then, some commentators claimed the grid would not be able to function with more than 10% – and definitely not more than 20% – electricity coming from solar and wind.

      >Those predictions look foolish now.

      This really shouldn’t be surprising. Plenty of other countries have a much higher percentage of their power generated by renewables (Denmark, Germany, the UK) and for longer than Australia, and their grids haven’t fallen over.

      There’s an engineering problem with adding too many renewables too quickly, in that it reduces the stability of the grid, but the idea we would be using coal or nuclear to firm this is nonsensical. Australia’s percentage of renewables as a percentage of total electricity production lags behind many other countries, and the idea that we can’t get to at *least* 50% is simply nonsense. And with more firming coming online, Australia could very realistically get to 70% without there being too much of an issue. 

      The main problem is that we’re not building the renewables fast enough to replace the end of life coal burning electricity generation capacity.

    10. keithstips on

      Those who doubted or still doubt are believers of the right wing rhetoric which is all about division and hatefulness, only so that conservative politics still has some relevance. The only reason modern conservatism still has any foothold worldwide is through hate and division, no other reason. And most of these hate creators claim to be conservatives in the name of their religion. Go figure.

    11. Geralts_Hair on

      The issue going forward is that the old guard are pumping lots of money into stopping transmission lines being built to move all the renewable energy around.

      Here in country Victoria the “stop the towers” advertising is prominent and everywhere.

      The long game is to stall transmission lines long enough that renewable energy can be blamed for outages. It’s infuriating and it will likely work; they’re already about two years behind on building any lines.

    12. UnattributableSax on

      They always did look foolish… the problem is they don’t care about looking foolish, nor how they’re perceived in any way shape or form.