20% Renewable Energy Target

• Legislation
• Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator 

Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET)

To help ensure the Government achieves its goal of a 20 percent share for renewable energy in Australia's electricity supply by 2020, the Government committed to increasing the MRET from 9,500 gigawatt-hours to 45,000 gigawatt-hours in 2020. The expanded measure is to be phased out between 2020 and 2030 as emissions trading matures and prices become sufficient to ensure that an MRET is no longer required to drive deployment of renewable generation technologies.

At the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in December 2007, the Commonwealth and States agreed to work cooperatively, commencing early in 2008, to bring the existing MRET and the various state-based targets into a single, expanded national MRET scheme by early 2009. An implementation plan and interim report on progress is to be put to COAG at its March 2008 meeting. The final design is to be provided to COAG for consideration at its September 2008 meeting.