Nearly 20 pct of Australian homes use renewable energy electricity

About 13.4 percent of Australian electricity market has been powered by renewable energy in 2012, which covered almost 4.2 million Australian homes, local broadcasting company ABC News said on Wednesday.

The data was revealed by the latest report that released by Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC).

The continuous rise of the prices of fossil fuel electricity concerns the Australians. The descending cost of renewable energy such as hydro, wind, solar power and bioenergy results in the growth of its market, the report said.

“Renewable energy is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation and that’s going to continue to fall over the coming decades and soon will be the cheapest form of electricity generation available to Australia,” the ABC news quoted Russell Marsh, the policy director of CEC, as saying.

According to the report, hydro-electricity remained as the largest share of the country’s renewable energy generation, which contributed 58 percent to the market.

Wind and solar power both also highly increased, which covered the 26 percent and 8 percent of the market respectively. Approximately 322,000 solar power systems were installed around the nation within last year. And about 14 large-scale renewable energy projects were launched online in 2012, the report said.

In addition, the growing consumption of the renewable energy benefits the job seekers in this industry. The industrial sector employed some 24,300 people at the beginning of 2013, the report said. And it also found that more than 4 billion Australian dollars (3.87 billion U.S. dollars) was invested in renewable technology last year.

The CEC is the top business association for Australia’s clean energy industry, consisting of more than 600 member companies operating in the fields of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

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