The Renewable Energy Target (RET) is an Australian Government scheme that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector and increase renewable electricity generation. The RET sets a target to deliver an extra 33,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity from renewable sources every year from 2020 to 2030.
The RET creates a market to incentivise the generation and use of renewable energy. This supports the transition towards a more sustainable and less carbon-intensive energy system.
The two schemes are:
- The Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET), which encourages investment in the development of renewable energy power stations, like wind and solar farms, by providing a financial incentive for electricity generated from renewable sources and creating a market for creating and selling large-scale generation certificates (LGC); and
- The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, which encourages investment in small-scale renewable energy. It provides incentives to households and businesses to install small-scale renewable energy systems like rooftop solar, solar batteries, solar water heaters and air sourced heat pumps.
