Qld households install solar by the thousands, despite negligible tariff

Queensland network operator Energex says another 2,345 rooftop solar systems – totalling around 10MW – were connected to its network in the month of January, despite the fact the households forking out for the PV systems would get little or nothing for the power they exported to the grid.

Energex – which has one of the highest penetrations of rooftop solar in the country – says it now has a total of 82,815 systems totalling 304,190kw capacity on the ‘retail only’ tariff; in other words, one-third of all its rooftop systems were installed after the 44c/kW tariff was dumped in late 2012.

With the number of households remaining on the 44c/kWh tariff decreasing steadily – the report says the number of premium FiT systems fell again in January by 782 to just under 194,686 as homes with solar were sold, or “flipped” – the average feed-in tariff paid per day to an Energex customer with solar PV is currently $2.20.

All up, the network operator – which covers the south-east corner of the state including Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast – says it now has 279,650 embedded solar PV systems (up by 2,373) of 926,782 kilowatts nameplate capacity (up by 10,840 kilowatts).

But despite the increase in the number of systems, Energex says the energy exported to the network fell from last month’s record 98,824MWh to 63, 530MWh – a drop that reflected seasonal variation in energy generated and household self-consumption.

Energex reports that around 104GWh of energy was generated by rooftop systems on its network, of which 39 per cent was self-consumed – up from 31 per cent in December, but still well below the 57 per cent self-consumption typical of mid-winter.

With 643GWh of energy consumed in the month in the residential sector, this means an estimated 15.2 per cent of all residential energy was generated by solar PV in January.

The number of applications for new systems continued to make a “slow but steady decline” to just over 2000 in January, Energex said.

The report says that large installations of more than 5kW continue to grow, with an additional 64 systems rated at 831kW being connected. This now totals 1,122 over-5kW systems totalling over 23 megawatts capacity.