Seven Australian solar facts to make your jaw drop

The Australia solar PV industry broke a whole set of new records in September. September data from the APVI and Clean Energy Regulator shows accelerated growth in utility scale solar, particularly benefiting rural and regional Australia.

And over the last quarter, a total of 1.56GW was registered with the Clean Energy Regulator – more PV capacity than in the entire record year of 2017.

Here are seven jaw-dropping records and fun facts Australia’s solar sector has been busy notching up…

1. Australia now has over 10.1 GW of solar installed, capable of delivering 14.6 TWhrs and meeting more than 5.5 per cent of Australia’s energy demand.

2. Total new solar registered for the month of September exceeded 725MW – the largest volume of new solar power recorded for a single month.

3. The record was set with the registration of 667MW of large-scale solar – the largest count for large systems >100kW in a single month. The previous record month was in July 2018, when 393MW of large scale solar was registered.

4. The two largest solar farms in Australia were registered in September: 180MW Daydream Solar Farm and 188MW Coleambally Solar Farm, while Bungala Solar Farm registered another 138MW – doubling its capacity to make it the biggest solar farm in the country.

5. Each GW of solar requires the installation and connection of over 3 million solar panels and creates more than 1,000 full time jobs a year; in design, engineering, procurement and construction. A further 30-100 ongoing positions are created in operations and maintenance.

6. Commercial and residential rooftop solar are also powering along with another 100MW expected to be registered in the in those markets. Australia is on track to exceed 1GW in installed rooftop solar for 2018.

7. With 1.95 million installations in Australia, and growing at over 15,000 per month, we expect to have over 2 million installs by the end of the year. Taking delayed registration into account, Australia will have over 10.2GW of solar installed by that time.

Renate Egan is chair of the Australian Photovoltaic Institute, APVI