NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully has vowed to accelerate the approval process for wind, solar and battery projects following industry criticism.
Speaking at the Smart Energy Council conference in Sydney, Mr Scully acknowledged that NSW was lagging behind other states regarding project approvals.
"The previous government left us further behind than we expected," he said.
"They had great ambitions, which we broadly agreed with, but there had not been a whole lot of delivery."
In an effort to pick up the pace, the department has approved 18 renewable energy projects - three wind farms, six solar farms and nine battery storage projects) had been approved in recent times.
Another 29 projects are in the planning stage with an additional 20 projects expected to be submitted to the department in coming months.
Most of these are expected to be determined this year.
It is estimated that these projects could save 8.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
"I don't think many people truly have an appreciation for the amount of work that goes into keeping the lights on," Mr Scully said.
"So we have to work as fast as possible to deliver the promise of tomorrow, and the promise of a renewable energy future.
"We know we have to get there. And get there as fast as possible."
While much attention is given to government approvals, Mr Scully pointed out there was often a significant lag between approvals and construction.
He said 29 projects have been commissioned with a generation capacity of more than 3800 megawatts since 2018.
Another 13 projects are currently being constructed but 40 projects totalling more than 7770 megawatts are approved but have yet to commence construction.
"Building and maintaining generation, transmission and storage assets requires skilled workers," he said.
"Training those workers is going to need continued investment in TAFE and apprenticeships."
"It's a truth that nothing is built without workers and workers can't be trained without investment."
Mr Scully said NSW, in particular regions like the Hunter, had the potential to become leaders in the export of renewable energy.
"We have built strong trading relationships with countries which have relied on our coal exports for years to power their economies and we can reorient those trading relationships to provide that same energy just from a different source if we work together," he said.
Mr Scully confirmed the government would introduce new rules to streamline the planning process for stand alone power systems, and medium sized batteries.
