Australia has spent years building one of the world’s great renewable energy stories.
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More than 4.3 million Australian homes now have rooftop solar. Batteries are taking off. Renewable electricity is increasingly powering our grid.
The next question is: how do we make better use of it?
That is why electrification is becoming much more than a climate conversation. It is a conversation about the cost of running our homes and businesses, the resilience of our economy and how we reduce our exposure to volatile global fossil fuel markets.
On 14 September, organisations from across Australia’s energy, property and consumer sectors will come together at Parliament House to launch Electrify Australia, a new campaign calling for a coordinated national approach to electrification.
The campaign is linked to the global Electrify Now campaign, which is working to accelerate progress towards the Paris Agreement by bringing governments, businesses and NGOs behind a shared goal – to lift electrification to at least 35 per cent of total global energy use by 2035.
For Australia, that global ambition translates into some very practical choices about the homes and buildings we construct, upgrade and operate.
We know how to deliver highly efficient, all electric new buildings. The harder challenge is the millions of buildings we already have.
Most of the buildings Australians will live and work in over the coming decades are already standing. We need to get much smarter about using the natural moments in their lives to electrify.
When a gas boiler reaches the end of its life, do we automatically install another one that could remain there for 15 or 20 years? When an apartment building upgrades its electrical infrastructure, can it prepare for EV charging at the same time? When a major refurbishment is planned, can electrification be part of the brief from day one?
Anyone who works with existing buildings knows this isn’t always simple.
There are questions about electrical capacity, capital budgets, equipment and timing. In apartments, there is the added challenge of getting an owner’s corporation to agree on what happens next.
Often, the barrier isn’t convincing people electrification is a good idea. It’s helping them work out how to do it.
Make the next decision easier
This is where government policy can make a real difference.
The ACT offers an interesting example. Its Climate Change Strategy 2026-36 builds on years of consistent policy towards an all-electric future. Importantly, that focus now extends to the messy reality of existing buildings.
Through its sustainable apartments program, the ACT government is helping owners’ corporations understand the technical feasibility, costs and practical pathway to upgrade their buildings.
NSW is also investing $557 million through its home energy saver program, supporting eligible households with upgrades including solar, batteries, insulation, reverse-cycle air conditioning and switchboard improvements.
The details differ, but the principle is the same: give people a clear direction and make the next investment decision easier.
That certainty matters in property.
Building owners make decisions that can lock in technology for decades. Developers make design decisions years before the doors open. Manufacturers need confidence to invest in products and supply chains. Trades need confidence to invest in skills.
When the direction is clear, markets can move remarkably quickly. Rooftop solar has already shown us that.
The opportunity goes beyond carbon
There is another reason the property sector should care.
Efficient, all electric buildings can reduce running costs, particularly when combined with solar and batteries. Moving away from gas cooking removes a source of combustion pollution from our homes. Smart electric buildings can increasingly work with the grid, shifting demand to times when renewable electricity is plentiful.
And electrification can make better use of energy produced here in Australia rather than leaving households and businesses exposed to global fossil fuel markets.
This is the thinking behind the new Electrify Australia campaign, which brings together the Green Building Council of Australia, Energy Consumers Australia, the Energy Efficiency Council, Rewiring Australia and others around the need for a coordinated national approach.
Government has another powerful lever too: its own buildings.
Across Australia, governments own and occupy offices, schools, hospitals and thousands of other assets. Progressively electrifying those buildings would not only reduce emissions and running costs. It would create demand for the technologies, skills and services the wider market needs.
Not every building can electrify tomorrow. Some will be straightforward and others genuinely difficult.
But we shouldn’t allow the hardest examples to stop us acting where the solutions already stack up.
The transition will ultimately be built through thousands of very ordinary property decisions: a boiler replaced, a switchboard upgraded, an EV charger installed, a building refurbished.
Our job is to make sure that, at each of those moments, the easier decision is also the one that prepares the building for the future.
Because electrification is still about climate. But it is increasingly about something just as immediate: making Australia’s homes, buildings and economy cheaper to run and more resilient.
