Snowy Hydro has released its 2024 Sustainability Report, covering the progress the energy generator and retailer has made in areas such as environmental stewardship, social impact, and understanding and responding to its carbon emissions and climate risks.
Snowy Hydro CEO Dennis Barnes said the report reflects the company’s role in enabling Australia’s transition to renewable energy, while highlighting its progress and ambitions.
“At Snowy Hydro, we understand that sustainability goes beyond fulfilling our environmental commitments,” Mr Barnes said.
“It’s about supporting our people, driving better diversity outcomes and making a positive difference to the communities we serve.
“The 2024 report shows the progress we are making and achievements we are proud of. While we recognise there is still more to do, this report serves as our roadmap, keeping us accountable and focused on delivering even better outcomes for stakeholders and the community in the future,” Mr Barnes said.
Mr Barnes also acknowledged Snowy Hydro’s responsibility as custodian of the water that flows through the Snowy Scheme, highlighting its role in balancing electricity network reliability, with the irrigation needs of farmers and other water users.
Key sustainability achievements in the 2023/2024 financial year include:
- Producing 3,937 GWh of renewable electricity from our hydro generation assets – enough energy to power around 600,000 homes for a year.
- Growing our mass market retail brands business to 1.4 million customers, with a focus on delivering authentic, personal customer service.
- Our retail brand Red Energy recognised with the Customer Satisfaction Award for the 14th year in a row
- 7,958 students benefitting from Snowy STEM Academy programs
- Keeping our people safe, reflected in our low Total Recordable Incident Frequency Rate (TRIFR) score
- Delivering five events of 8-hour peak water flows from Jindabyne reservoir to improve the health of the Snowy River ecosystem
- Maintaining outstanding reliability across our generation assets, with our hydro generators starting successfully 99.7 per cent of the time, and gas 98.5 per cent of the time, underpinning our ability to contribute to stable electricity supply
- $557,000 spent through our community giving programs
- Increasing the proportion of women in senior leadership roles
- $320,000 of funding for Murray River rehabilitation work to maintain waterflow and prevent erosion
Snowy Hydro is the third largest generator of electricity in Australia by capacity. We can generate 5,500 megawatts (MW) of electricity across eight hydroelectric power stations, three natural gas power stations, and four diesel power stations.
Snowy 2.0 and the Hunter Power Project are set to deliver 2,860MW of additional capacity. This significant boost to the network’s capacity will make a meaningful difference to energy supply reliability, particularly on hot days in summer.
When these fast-start generating assets come online, they will enable further wind and solar generation that can displace more than 33 million tonnes of CO2-e per annum.
This carbon emissions displacement would represent a 28 percent reduction in the National Electricity Market emissions from 2022 levels, and approximately 13 percent of Australia’s 2030 total emissions reduction target.
To learn more about Snowy Hydro’s sustainability journey and access the 2024 report, visit https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Snowy-Hydro_2024-Sustainability-Report.pdf.
