Australian households installed rooftop solar system every 2.8 minutes in 2014

Households in Australia installed a rooftop solar system every 2.8 minutes in 2014 – almost the same rate as in the US, with barely 1/15 of the population.

According to data compiled by Green Energy Markets, and based around the issue of renewable energy certificates, a total of 185,890 solar systems were installed in Australia in 2014 – almost all of them on household rooftops. That made for a total of 816MW.

Queensland dominated with nearly one third of installations, or just short of 60,000 homes, or 253MW. NSW added 37,215 systems, or 170MW, taking the total since it dumped its solar bonus scheme to 470MW – more than was installed when the tariff was more than 60c/kWh.

GEM 2014 installs

While households continue to dominate in number and scale, the uptake by businesses in “commercial scale” installations – from 10kW to 100kW – is increasing, particularly in states such as NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

EM december mix

Only two new “power stations” were accredited by the Clean Energy Regulator in December, according to the GEM data – a 300kW solar system at Bidvest Bibra Lake in Western Australia, and a 100kW system on the Soldiers Point Bowling Club in NSW.

There were 59,000 solar hot water systems added during the year across the country. One third of these were installed in Victoria.

Comments

5 responses to “Australian households installed rooftop solar system every 2.8 minutes in 2014”

  1. disqus_3PLIicDhUu Avatar
    disqus_3PLIicDhUu

    Waste of a good resource, banging solar in on most roofs.
    For our nation to move forward, this resource needs to be captured wholesale and managed much better, at the 30% efficiency, it can presently be captured at.
    As shown by many national energy production charts, our solar generation basically makes a thin line compared to a good equivalent energy source, wind, this is due to wind being captured on an industrial scale and solar is still mainly captured on a domestic scale.
    Self centered, domestic solar initiative, policy, created this problem.
    Solar power stations should be where our efforts need to be directed, not millions of self centered systems, that make hardly a dent in the national energy usage.
    This has mainly happened, due to the creation of retail energy market, where all fear the increases associated with rising utility costs, now we still have to deal with pollution considerations, when most people have got their head’s stuck in their own selfish concerns.

    1. Elisabeth Meehan Avatar
      Elisabeth Meehan

      There is nothng “self centred” about installing roof top solar and helping yourself, as well as the planet.
      It shows that once people understand the benefits, they are prepared to put up their own money – fantastic!

      1. disqus_3PLIicDhUu Avatar
        disqus_3PLIicDhUu

        The policy was aimed at installing a million individual systems, rather than thousands of solar power stations.
        Installing the solar power stations, would have used much less resources than the individual systems for higher energy yield.
        The power stations would be monitored and maintained, without the problems of individually owned systems, that is orientation, shading, cleaning, faults, etc

        1. aus. Avatar
          aus.

          The ‘million individual’ policy is about achieving independence and freedom when it comes to energy usage. I’m all for the solar farms, however any way you look at it, whether part of a renewable energy grid or a fossil fuel grid you are still at the mercy of the energy companies. Household solar power is allowing people to take power into their own hands, and achieve transparent and independent power usage.

          1. disqus_3PLIicDhUu Avatar
            disqus_3PLIicDhUu

            Unless you are ‘off grid’ you are never independent, you are still reliant on the grid and still have to deal with the idiosyncrasies of retailers and costs.
            Unless you have a good understanding of your own system to know if it is optimized for its own aspect and functioning correctly, then you are still dependent on solar professionals to maintain your system/s, so you are never really independent, as such.
            It was a poorly thought out policy, from the outset, aimed at false prospects of fulll control of personal generation and energy costs, instead of engineering environmental solutions, first.

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