Rooftop solar market closes out winter at a new high, as households keep going big

Australia’s rooftop solar market has hit a new high for the year, after 295MW of total monthly installations delivered the best August on record and put the national trend back on the up – and within striking distance of the market’s best year ever, in 2021.

The latest small-scale solar data from industry analysts SunWiz says the market for PV installations of up to 100kW increased by 13 per cent (34MW) in month-on-month volume, jumping from 261MW in July to 295MW in August.

SunWiz managing director Warwick Johnston says the key driver behind the big month of installs was a jump in the amount of rooftop PV systems going onto homes, with a bit of a rebound in the sub-15kW sector, and a strong performance, too, in the 15-20kW small commercial sector.

“Best August on record,” says Johnston, “which has placed us not far behind 2021 year-to-date, our best year on record!”

The 295MW recorded in August 2023 is above the volumes seen in the same month in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and the August year-to-date volumes are 19 per cent up on the same time last year, the SunWiz report shows.

The market was strong in all states and territories across the month, Johnston says, with particularly good numbers in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

The average system size remains north of 9kW, dropping back a touch from last month to 9.46kW, mainly due to large amount of volume registered in the residential range, the report notes.

Across the market segments, SunWiz says all volumes grew, except for the >30-50kW range, with residential and 15-20kW volumes having the largest impact on national volume.