The marginal seats with the most rooftop solar

The list of the most marginal Federal seats with the highest rate of deployment for rooftop solar systems shows that there is a roughly even split between Coalition and government rankings, with the ALP having 10 such seats, the Liberals 8, the Liberal National Party 6 and the WA Nationals 1.

The table below indicates that 25 electorates with margins of 5 per cent or less that have 10,000 or more rooftop solar installations. Don Randall, the Liberal member for Canning in Western Australia, has the highest number of rooftop solar systems. This should not be surprising, because as we identified last month, it includes Australia’s solar capital, Coodanup, near Mandurah. That seat is followed by the adjacent seat, Brand, held by Labor’s Gary Gray.  The Queensland seat of Fischer held by former Speaker and now independent Peter Slipper, unlikely to stand again for the Coalition, if at all, has the next highest deployment.

Members of the Australian Solar Council, the Solar Energy Industry Association and the 100% Renewables campaign took this data to a number of the members in Canberra last week. Many of the politicians were surprised about the number of rooftop systems in their electorate.

Such data should mean that on paper at least, solar and renewable energy policy should have bipartisan support. That, however, has fractured since each of the Coalition state governments argued for the renewable target to be dumped, or wound back, in light of the carbon price.

All told, there are some 517,120 solar households in electorates with margins of 5 per cent or less. For the record, here are the other 25 seats with a margin of less than 5 per cent, and their rate of solar deployment.