Leading Australian energy infrastructure business, APA Group (ASX:APA), has today released its 2024 Climate Report, detailing ongoing progress against its 2022 Climate Transition Plan.

Highlights from the last year included ongoing progress towards 2030 interim targets and goals, delivery of abatement measures under our Methane Action Plan and ongoing partnering with customers to support decarbonisation across the economy.

APA CEO and Managing Director, Adam Watson, said APA has an important role to play in the energy transition and to ensure Australian households, businesses and industry continue to have access to affordable, reliable and lower emissions energy.

“As Australia’s energy infrastructure partner, APA makes two distinct and important contributions to the nation’s energy transition: partnering with our customers to deliver solutions that support their climate ambitions, and decarbonisation of our own operations,” Adam said.

“With Australia’s decarbonisation agenda continuing to mature and evolve, the central role of natural gas in ensuring energy security, supporting the accelerated development of renewables and powering essential Australian industry in an affordable and sustainable way, is now widely acknowledged. This has been reinforced by the Federal Government’s Future Gas Strategy and the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) 2024 Gas Statement of Opportunities.

“APA’s extensive network of natural gas pipelines, together with our large and growing portfolio of renewables, firming generation and electricity transmission infrastructure assets, deliver integrated and customer-focused solutions that play a critical role in decarbonising the economy.

“In FY24, we delivered a 1.7 per cent gross reduction and a 10 per cent net reduction (including offsets) in gas infrastructure emissions, along with an 11.3 per cent reduction in power generation emissions intensity, compared to our FY21 base year – this represents ongoing progress towards our 2030 interim targets and goals,” Adam said.

The 2024 Climate Report details the progress APA has made in FY24, the second year in implementing its 2022 Climate Transition Plan.

Highlights from the last year have included:

• Ongoing progress towards 2030 interim targets and goals, including a 1.7% gross reduction and a 10% net reduction (including offsets) in gas infrastructure emissions, as well as an 11.3% reduction in power generation emissions intensity (both relative to our FY21 base year).
• Delivery of abatement measures under our Methane Action Plan.
• Improved understanding of abatement opportunities across our gas infrastructure network through enhanced methane measurement on the South West Queensland Pipeline (SWQP) including using state of the art aerial Gas Mapping LiDAR technology.
• Undertook comprehensive technical and commercial assessments for the electrification of the Wallumbilla compressor station in Queensland.
• Partnering with our customers to achieve their decarbonisation ambitions across the Pilbara Energy System in Western Australia to develop and deliver APA’s renewables pipeline, including ongoing delivery of the Port Hedland Solar and Battery project.
• Exploring fuels of the future including continued feasibility work on Western Australia’s Parmelia Gas Pipeline Green Hydrogen project in partnership with our customer, and with funding support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
• Completion of the next stage of our physical climate risk analysis, with deep dive assessments on five priority assets across a range of operational activities and locations.
• Procuring 100% renewable electricity to address our Scope 2 emissions, achieved through the purchase and surrender of large-scale generation certificates.
• Continuing our contribution to broader industry and policy developments in relation to climate.
• Progress towards delivering our Scope 3 goal, with the development of an opportunity roadmap for further analysis and incorporation into our next Climate Transition Plan.

APA’s FY24 Climate Report continues to build on APA’s FY23 approach and aims to align APA’s disclosures with the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. The report includes a comprehensive Climate Data Book, which transparently reports APA’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as well as APA’s approach to offsets.