Our Renewable Energy Resources

Taking a strictly theoretical look at Victoria's 'useable' renewable energy has shown there is good potential for it to become a cleaner, greener state.

The report Renewable Resourceful Victoria - The renewable energy potential of Victoria found Victoria has more than sufficient useable renewable resources, both on an absolute basis and on an “energy use per person” basis, to conceivably meet all our energy needs from renewable sources in the future.

However, the report does not consider the social, technical or economic factors that place limits on the speed and scale of change that could be achievable.

So the challenge for us now will be to find the right way to develop these resources.

The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) commissioned the report in 2009, engaging Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global engineering, sciences and project delivery firm, to examine whether there were sufficient renewable energy resources available to meet all of Victoria's energy needs in the future. The project reflected the work undertaken by British scientist and policy analyst David Mackay who looked at the issue in the UK. He found the high population density and existing land use placed limitations in meeting all of Britain's energy supply with onshore renewable technologies. The results for Victoria were more encouraging.

The full report is included below in 2 parts.

Part 1 contains an overview of the results and analysis.

Part 2 includes more detailed data for each resource.

Read more about Victoria's renewable energy options.