New Index launched to track Australia's renewable energy performance

Market analysts Green Energy Markets and advocacy group GetUp! have jointly launched the new Australian Renewable Energy Index, a monthly measure of the amount of renewable energy Australia relies on, the jobs it creates and the environmental benefits.
The inaugural edition of the Index is a benchmark report covering July 2016 to June 2017 with findings in the following categories:
Renewable energy generation
● Australia produced enough renewable energy to power 7.1 million homes, or 70% of all households in the country;
● Renewables made up 17.2% of the electricity generated in Australia (in the National Electricity Market and Western Australian Electricity Market);
● The amount of renewable energy used last financial year avoided an amount of carbon pollution equal to removing 8.1 million cars from the road. This is more than half of all the cars in Australia.
Employment in the renewable energy sector
● 46 large-scale renewable energy projects were under construction at the end of 2016-17;
● These projects are estimated to create enough jobs to employ 8,868 people full-time for a year (in other words, 8,868 job-years of employment);
● NSW is in the lead, gaining the largest number at 3,018, mostly from the construction of new wind farms;
● Queensland is in second place with 2,625 job years, with 70% flowing from solar farm construction and the remainder from wind farms.
Contribution of rooftop solar
● Almost 150,000 small-scale rooftop solar systems were installed in the year to June 2017;
● These systems generated enough energy to power over 226,000 homes;
● The systems installed last year will deliver around $1.6 billion in power bill savings over the next 10 years to the households and businesses that installed them — almost $10,000 per system;
● Installing these solar systems supported 3,769 full-time jobs (across installation, design and sales).
The Renewable Energy Index is funded by GetUp! to provide an up-to-date record of the contribution renewable energy is making to Australia.
The report is available here.