The transition to renewable energy in Australia represents a significant opportunity for First Nations communities to benefit from developments on their land.

In partnership with the First Nations Clean Energy Network and Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation, the authors conducted research exploring this opportunity, with a specific focus on the barriers preventing First Nations from achieving these benefits and what different groups of actors could do to help overcome these barriers.

In this paper we present the findings from a series of semi-structured interviews with Traditional Owners, First Nations groups, renewable energy developers and industry representatives, legal experts and other academics.

We identified two groups of barriers – overarching barriers including ongoing disadvantage and a lack of funding and resourcing for First Nations groups, and barriers specific to renewable energy developments such as the absence of Indigenous free, prior and informed consent in project approval processes and unclear, non-uniform legislative frameworks.

To overcome these barriers, we recommend strategies for different actors. For example, governments could implement Indigenous free, prior and informed consent in regulatory regimes and the renewable energy industry could establish cultural education and training programs for company staff.

Authors: Katie Quail, Donna Green, Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh, Large-scale renewable energy developments on the Indigenous Estate: How can participation benefit Australia's First Nations peoples?, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 123, 2025, 104044, ISSN 2214-6296

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First Nations groups in Australia hold important rights, interests, and leverage in the shift to renewable energy through native title, land rights, and other legal property rights. Many clean energy projects will be developed on land and waters where First Nations people have legally recognised responsibilities and connections.

Switching to renewable energy is crucial for cutting emissions and creating a sustainable future. For First Nations communities, this transition offers reliable and affordable power, energy-efficient homes, and opportunities for jobs, self-determination, and economic growth.

This guide to First Nations contribution to the renewables and clean energy sector was published by the ILSC.

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The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation have published a comprehensive guide to assist First Nations understand, participate, and lead in the renewables and clean energy sector.

The Queensland Renewable Energy Council launched its 'Queensland Renewable Energy Developer and Investor Toolkit' in May 2025.

Energy security, disconnections, and community engagement on energy project development were the number one themes at the Network's inaugural First Nations Clean Energy Gathering in South Australia.

Authors: Powering Skills Organisation & Jobs and Skills Council (JSC), Growing the First Nations Clean Energy Workforce, Research Brief – March 2025

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Grid-connected community energy projects in Australia face significant challenges that innovative approaches to behind-the-meter asset investment can avoid. Where dedicated communities endeavour to step into grid-connected asset deployment, however, they do better in some locations than others, with some project designs than others, and where they can secure access to FCAS, technical expertise, mentoring, and even the partnership of an aggregator.

Despite the immense complexity and market risk, there are projects delivering the right mix of positive outcomes sought by their communities. Community projects so often involve generous people doing good work, but not all project configurations are equal. There is no shortcut for energy market knowledge. Caveat emptor.

To explore the value of community energy projects, whether financial, non-financial or a combination of both, it is helpful to understand the driving objectives of those that initiate them. With an understanding of the problems that proponents are looking to solve, it’s possible to reflect on how successfully these projects perform.

We identified four driving motivations, with crossovers common across projects: accelerating climate action; securing energy access, reliability and resilience; building community economic opportunity and agency, and; building Social Capital and energy transition literacy.

This report was authored by Anna Hancock, Mitch Shannon, Andrew McConnell, and Tristan Ashford, Pollination Group, July 2024

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Australia’s story of the energy transition is most visible in the uptake of large-scale solar and wind farms or now prolific rooftop solar. Less visible is the role of renewable energy in efforts to reinstate life and land to Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

This paper tells the story of off-grid remote renewable energy rollouts in Indigenous communities in Northern Australia.

While the analysis is specific to Australia, it has broader lessons about incorporating Indigenous governance approaches into renewable energy rollouts so that Indigenous communities in financially constrained contexts share in the intended benefit of installed electricity systems.

Using energy sociotechnical imaginaries and energy justice, the paper explores the emergence, impact and contemporary legacy of Bushlight (2002–2013), a government funded renewable energy program delivered by an Indigenous-led non-profit organisation.

Bushlight was part of Australia’s early efforts to build its renewable energy sector, operating with a dual mandate of decarbonisation and community development in Indigenous Homelands communities.

The analysis of sociotechnical imaginaries explains how collectives come together to anticipate and address distributional justice issues through policy development and how these collectives and their vision for renewable energy evolve through implementation.

Tracing how these imaginaries extend into the present highlights the influence of broader socio-political dynamics shaping Indigenous-settler-colonial relations.

The paper’s findings have important implications for decolonisation, supporting Indigenous people to live on and care for Country while retaining their right to essential services.

This paper serves as a reminder that financial constraints can manifest unevenly within as well as between geopolitical segments. Governance approaches need to reflect this internal unevenness and can assist in addressing this unevenness through renewable energy rollouts.

Secondly, this case highlights the influence of governance and regulation in supporting equitable private sector delivery and operation of renewable energy power systems in complex and financially constrained contexts within high income national contexts. This serves as a reminder for donors, policy makers and private sector of the risks that accompany uncritically replicating energy supply arrangements in high income countries, often adopted by multi-lateral finance institutions and donors in the global south.

Thirdly, this paper reflects on energy policy and implementation as a force for supporting or weakening Citizen-State relations.

Finally, this paper provides an account of electrification through renewable energy rollouts that centred on Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. In doing so, this contributes to a broader understanding of electrification beyond Atlantic-centred “global” histories.

Author: Anna Cain, Australian National University, College of Engineering and Computing and Cybernetics, ACT, Australia, published online 25 January 2024.

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The energy transformation in New South Wales has included a range of initiatives for First Nations people. 

The Australian government has released its Critical Minerals Strategy with First Nations engagement and benefit sharing one of the 6 key focus areas, focusing on: 

• strengthening engagement and partnerships with First Nations people and communities, respecting their land and water rights and interests;
• supporting the critical minerals sector’s immediate and long-term social licence to operate and its ongoing sustainability. This includes creating economic opportunities in regional and First Nations communities while protecting cultural heritage and sacred sites;
• working with First Nations communities and their representative organisations to build their capacity to engage with critical minerals proponents; and
• working to improve equity and investment opportunities for First Nations interests.