Major reduction in carbon emissions a key highlight of United Energy’s first Sustainability Report
Electricity distribution network United Energy has reported a 22% decrease in its greenhouse gas emissions over the past four years as Victoria’s clean energy transformation escalates.
This result, as well as better than targeted performance in network reliability and safety, are highlights reported by the network in its 2022 Sustainability Report.
The reduction in emissions puts the network on track to meet its 2030 target of achieving a 30% reduction compared to 2019 baseline levels.
The report, released today, provides broad information on action taken in 2022 for a variety of sustainability key performance indicators under four key areas - safe and equitable workplaces, environmental and climate resilience, empowering communities and responsible governance.
United Energy Chief Executive Officer, Tim Rourke, said the network was making good progress on their sustainability commitments to customers, employees, shareholders and the communities we operate within.
“Expectations for our performance are changing, particularly as our communities experience the impacts of climate change,” Mr Rourke said.
“We are taking the actions needed to reduce our impact on climate change and mitigate the impact of extreme weather events on the network for our customers and their communities.”
Reductions in emissions from line losses over time reflect the increasing volume of renewable and distributed energy sources.
At the end of 2022, there was 611MW of renewable generation directly connected within the network, with 77% of that residential solar.
In October 2021, large parts of the United Energy network were impacted by a major storm event.
“The forecasts for more frequent extreme weather events are influencing our approach to asset management, maintenance and construction and we’re always working to minimise impacts of these type of events on our customers,” Mr Rourke said.
Not including major weather events, United Energy customers experienced 99.99% reliability of electricity supplies, with 31 minutes off supply on average, below our 2026 target of 50.7 minutes.
The 2022 Sustainability Report is available at Sustainability - United Energy.
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Installed renewable generation, 2019-2022 (GW)
Installed capacity by renewable generation type, 2022
