While the electricity generation sector remained the largest emitting industry in Australia (47.9 %), 2019–20 was the second consecutive year that emissions from this sector were less than 50% of all reported scope 1 emissions.
The below graph shows reported electricity production, emissions intensity and fuel type for the largest 20 electricity generators in 2019–20.
Electricity production and emissions intensity of electricity generators.
The ratio of emissions to electricity generation (known as emissions intensity) depends largely on the fuel source, with brown coal producing more emissions per unit of electricity than other fuel types. Emissions intensity is a way of measuring the amount of emissions from each unit of electricity produced.
Emissions included in this spotlight
The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) scheme is a single national framework for corporations to report greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and production. This covers about 60% of Australia’s total emissions. Emissions from the agricultural, forestry, private vehicle transport and residential sectors are not collected under the NGER scheme and therefore not included in this data.