Australian solar market rebounds as battery storage interest grows

The Australian rooftop solar PV market rebounded strongly in May, posting its highest installation figures for the year as demand surged in Western Australia, and Victoria challenged Queensland for the title of number one state.

According to data compiled by industry consultants Sunwiz and Green Energy Markets, the Australian rooftop solar sector posted a near 40 per cent jump in the latest month.

Sunwiz put the May total at 65MW and GEM at 63MW, taking the total for the year to around 270MW – still about 7 per cent behind the 2015 total in the same period, thanks to a slow start to the year. There are now a total of 1.552 million rooftop solar systems in Australia, for a total capacity of 4.9GW

The Australian solar market has been slowing steadily in recent years – a situation blamed on low or zero tariffs for exports back into the grid, and the belief that some areas are reaching “saturation” point and that most of the “easy sales” have been done.

“May was a great month for solar PV,” said Warwick Johnston, the head of Sunwiz, adding that volumes recovered in every size category, but particularly in the commercial sector in systems of more than 75kW.

Queensland has long been Australia’s  leading solar state, with a total of more than 1.5GW of rooftop solar – effectively the state’s second biggest power station after the Gladstone coal plant.

But its status as the biggest market, at least on a monthly level, is now under challenge as Victoria overtakes NSW for the number two position.

In the last month, 11.6MW was installed in Victoria on 2,680 premises – just 21 installations shy of the Queensland total. (Total capacity in Queensland was 12.8MW, helped by the fact that the average installation was nearly 10 per cent bigger than Victoria).

The other big mover is Western Australia (see graph below), where installations are at their highest levels in more than a year.

Shane Cremin, CEO of WA-based Infinite Energy, one of the biggest installers in the state, says one of the reasons for the increased activity could be the entry of retailers Synergy and Alinta into the solar market.

Cremin says battery storage is also sparking interest, not necessarily in terms of immediate sales, but for owners of rooftop solar systems as consumers get ready for the time when battery storage costs come down.

“People are aware of battery storage, but we are not seeing a lot of sales yet, but it is driving interest and sales of solar,” Cremin told RenewEconomy.

That is an interesting, because Origin Energy said only yesterday that it also expected interest in battery storage to spark a “new wave” in rooftop solar sales, although it did not expect this to happen until after 2020, when battery storage costs are expected to fall to “mass market” levels.

Indeed, LG says it has seen a surge of 40 per cent higher demand for its new NeON315W and 320W range in May and June over the previous months.

“Obviously higher efficient panels ensure that even on smaller roofs a decent size system can be created – big enough to fill the batteries during the day for harvesting at night,” national sales manager Markus Lambert says.

“Some of our dealers have started to sell in excess of 20 battery systems a week, both LG Chem and Tesla.”

The average system price rose slightly in the last month, although they have been falling steady in recent years.