New figures from industry consultants SunWiz has shown that Australia now has 3GW’s of installed solar PV capacity showing that rooftop solar is still as popular as ever.
In 2008 we only had 10 000 solar PV arrays installed and now we have over 1.2 million installed systems. “Around Australia, solar power is making its impact felt through reduced electricity bills for solar owners and lower wholesale electricity prices for everyone,” wrote SunWiz’s Warrick Johnston. Across the country, SunWiz calculated that 14% of “dwellings” now have a solar array.
Queensland once again holds the lead with nearly 1GW of installed capacity – that equates to around 360 000 solar systems! Followed by New South Wales with 633, Victoria 532, South Australia 450 and Western Australia with 334.
With many incentive drops experienced over the last year, 2012 showed many record highs in the solar industry. SunWiz figures show that in mid-2012, Australia was installing around 180MW’s each month and we are now installing between 60 – 70MW’s. Mr Johnston has said this is possibly a good thing saying, “The Australian solar power industry is currently enjoying the stability it long wished for.”
With basically all state’s feed-in tariffs (FIT) now lowered drastically, solar power is being installed purely for household use with little to no power being exported to electricity retailers. Thus, rooftop solar power systems have been fittingly labelled “The People’s Power.”
According to the figures, 14% of dwellings now have a solar power system. In South Australia, one in four homes has solar power installed. Queensland has a penetration rate of 22 per cent and WA 18 per cent.
“The consumer is getting a bargain, and using the low prices to up-size their system to now average 4.3kW in capacity, and the most popular system size has leaped from 1.5kW to 3kW or 5kW depending on which state you live in,” says SunWiz.
Commercial solar is also on the up with around 5% of systems recently installing being over 8kWs. The Clean Energy Council has said that these 3GW’s of installed capacity will produce around 4000 gigawatt hours of electricity over the next year saving around a combined $1billion in electricity bills at the current rates.
With the heat already setting in around the country, these systems will help reduce the strain on main grids when extra air conditioners are run for longer periods. They will also impact the price of wholesale electricity.