Bioenergy consumption in Australia falls despite 7% increase in renewables

In Australia, since 2020, Savvy’s new report on Australian energy consumption shows people spent more time at home and many are now permanently working from there. Therefore, energy consumption has switched from commercial (which dropped -3.1%) to residential usage (increasing 2.7%).

In 2019-20 Australia’s total energy consumption fell -2.9% overall, mainly due to the repercussions of COVID-19, with total energy consumption being 6,013.8 petajoules (PJ) (one petajoule equaling the electricity usage of 19,000 homes per year). Of this figure, renewable energy represented 7% of all consumption.

The 7% of Australia’s total renewable energy consumption is made up of many sources. Consumption from renewable sources saw a large increase of 4.7% growth in 2019-20 on the previous year. This was mainly driven by solar photovoltaic (PV) (the panels you see on homes and businesses), which increased by 41.7% and wind by 15.2% while biomass energy consumption fell 5.7% to 40.4% of renewable energy consumption and biofuel consumption fell 10.5% to 1.6%. Biogas consumption did rise 2.1%, however, to account for 4% of renewable energy consumption.