These technologies provide clean and renewable ways to capture, generate, store and use power. Storing energy for later use helps balance energy production with demand.
We have updated the data in this list since we first published it in 2021. Find previous datasets in the National Library of Australia’s Trove website archive.
These technologies can be used for:
Australia’s research strengths in critical technologies underpin new economic opportunities and sovereign capabilities.
From 2022 to 2024, Australia’s research trends are consistent across critical technology fields. Clean energy generation and storage saw an increase in publications.
Research quality increased slightly from 2022 to 2024. We define quality as the percentage of publications in the top 10% most cited publications in the field.
Research specialisation remained the same from 2022 to 2024. We define specialisation as the ratio of the share of a field in the publications that come from a given country to the share of the same field in the global total of publications.
Australian research publications for clean energy generation and storage technologies field, 2022–2024.
| 2022 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Publications | 5515 | 6710 |
Intellectual property (IP) rights are vital to supporting translation of critical technology research outcomes into products, businesses and new capabilities.
Clean energy generation and storage (standard) patent applications increased steadily from 2017 to 2022, with a slight decrease over 2019 to 2020.
Clean energy generation and storage technologies (standard) patent applications in Australia, 2017–2022.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | % growth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent applications | 756 | 842 | 800 | 779 | 946 | 1192 | 57.67 |
Clean energy generation and storage (standard) patent applications by Australian applicants doubled from 2017 to 2022, with a slight decrease over 2019 to 2020.
Clean energy generation and storage technologies Australian applicant (standard) patent applications in Australia, 2017–2022.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patent applications | 52 | 75 | 61 | 63 | 96 | 114 |
Venture capital (VC) investment data can help assess Australia’s critical technology capability. The data acts as a real-time signal of where private investment is supporting innovation.
Strong growth in clean energy from about $407 million in 2023 to roughly $485 million in 2024 correlates with increased focus from government. This includes investment support and regulatory reform.
Venture capital investment in Australian clean energy generation and storage technologies firms, 2014–2024.
| Year | VC investment in $millions |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 0.5 |
| 2015 | 4.79 |
| 2016 | 14.17 |
| 2017 | 34.66 |
| 2018 | 45.06 |
| 2019 | 105.16 |
| 2020 | 109.2 |
| 2021 | 343.95 |
| 2022 | 316.01 |
| 2023 | 407.43 |
| 2024 | 485.37 |
| Total | 1866.3 |
Australia is set to become a renewable energy superpower. We have:
More renewable energy generation and storage in Australia will:
But transitioning to clean energy has challenges, including:
New technologies can improve our grid infrastructure and help ease this transition, with batteries and supercapacitors making the electricity grid more resilient.
CSIRO collected all publication data from Web of Science systems and covers 2022 and 2024.
We sourced all patent data from IP Australia. The data covers 2017 to 2022 for standard patent applications filed in Australia. It does not include innovation patents, following a 2022 review phasing them out. We note innovation filings were on the rise during this period, which led to a spike in the years leading up to ceasing.
DISR collected all VC data in March 2025 using Pitchbook and covers 2014 to 2024.
