A revamped electricity grid is doing the heavy lifting on reducing emissions, official data shows, as Australia’s east coast faces heatwaves and blackout warnings.

“It doesn’t matter how quickly we’re developing renewable projects if we fail to bring this energy online,” climate tech firm Neara’s co-founder Jack Curtis said.

The industry must address critical constraints preventing renewable generation entering the grid to stabilise supply and ride out extreme weather, Curtis said.

With transmission projects facing significant delays, using the existing grid to its full capacity needed to occur before “blackout fatigue” and anxiety for consumers truly set in over summer, he said.

Before the annual climate statement to parliament on Thursday, conservationists have warned the lack of federal ambition on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will bring longer heatwaves, more intense bushfires and worse flooding.

“Australians care about bills, they care about reliability, and they care about emissions,” Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said in Canberra.

“The good news is the government’s policies increase reliability, reduce bills and reduce emissions because renewables do all three.”

Bowen said the Australian Energy Market Operator had taken appropriate action to prevent blackouts and had various levers to use, including issuing a lack of reserve notice.

That tells energy companies to generate more electricity if they can and transmission companies to ensure their transmission lines are operating.

AEMO expects 90 per cent of Australia’s ageing, increasingly unreliable coal-fired power generators to retire by 2035.

A rapid increase in investment to deliver new reliable renewable generation capacity, plus storage and firming, and transmission lines, will step up to meet Australia’s growing electricity needs, according to official data.

After a surge in the rollout, the Clean Energy Regulator forecasts the average annual renewable share to reach 45 per cent in 2025, up from 40 per cent this year.

Total added capacity of renewables, mainly wind farms, is expected to be as much as 7.5 gigawatts in 2024, with an additional 1.2GW of capacity under application and expected to be approved in early 2025.

An “energy wallet” that gauges total household spending shows residential electricity costs are projected to decline and households equipped with smart meters that can control small-scale energy resources will benefit the most.

The Australian Energy Market Commission said it would accelerate the deployment of smart meters across the national electricity market, so that consumers and the energy system could access the benefits sooner.

The growing network of consumer-owned energy resources includes rooftop solar, batteries, electric vehicles with bi-directional charging, hot water heaters and pool pumps.

A household that fully electrifies could reduce annual energy expenditure by 70 per cent or $3500 a year, according to the commission.

But with the electricity sector doing the heavy lifting on reducing the nation’s carbon footprint, while the resources-based economy continues to expand, critics have questioned the credibility of national climate policies.

A grassroots movement known as Rising Tide wants an end to approvals of new or expanded coal and gas projects and for a 78 per cent tax on coal export profits to support workers who must find new jobs if production is phased out.

It plans to escalate civil disobedience in the lead-up to the federal election, after a successful coal port blockade in Newcastle.

-AAP