Coal and gas are being replaced by solar and wind in Australia

At the turn of the millennium, Australia got more than 80% of its electricity from coal. This has dropped to less than 50%.

This chart shows how the country’s electricity mix has changed in recent decades. The data comes from the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, coal was initially replaced by gas, with only moderate growth in solar and wind. But in the last five years, solar and wind have been deployed much more quickly. Gas is now on the decline, too. In 2023, solar overtook gas to become Australia’s second-largest electricity source.

While coal is declining, it still supplies much more of Australia’s power than most high-income countries.

(This Daily Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.)