With quarterly installations of new solar panels expected to reach an all-time high by the end of 2023, Australian households are more than three times more likely to have a photovoltaic system such as a swimming pool in their backyard.
Households and businesses added 921 megawatts of solar PV capacity in the December quarter, according to SunWiz, an industry data group.
The figure brings new rooftop solar capacity to about 3.17 GW for all of last year, up 14% in 2022 and slightly below 2021's record annual installation of 3.23 GW as installers braced for Covid for related outages.
The latest quarter, or 2023, also included the two busiest months for solar installations in Australia, with growth of 329MW in November and 321MW in December. This included the largest day with more than 26 megawatts added, December 21.
Warwick Johnston, chief executive of SunWiz, said the industry is poised for a "strong start to 2024" as consumers rush to hedge against rising electricity prices. In addition, "global oversupply has reduced the price of new panels," he said.
Small-scale solar installations, covering systems of 100 kW or less, have long been the fastest-growing sector of the renewable energy industry. By contrast, large-scale solar and wind farms are not being built at the rate needed to replace coal-fired power stations, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) warned in a major report last month.
More than 3 million Australian homes had solar panels on their roofs, with annual growth of 12 per cent over the past five years, Emo said. This capacity means that rooftop solar can meet almost half of the electricity demand in the national energy market for half of a sunny day.
At the end of last year, rooftop solar sometimes supplied all of South Australia's electricity needs and two-thirds of Victoria's, Emo says.
Johnston said part of the increase in solar PV capacity is due to an increase in units being purchased by households. According to SunWiz data, the average system was about 10.5 kW.
Falling costs for new panels, combined with electricity prices rising by a quarter or more over the past year, mean the payback period for new systems is now less than five years for residential users. For commercial users, the panels will pay for themselves in 5.3 years, or by 2023, SunWiz said.
Although final numbers have not yet been calculated, households are likely to add about 60,000 household batteries in 2023, up a fifth from a year ago, Johnston said.
As consumers look to soak up excess solar energy produced by their rooftop systems during the day, he said states like Victoria pay just three cents per kilowatt hour to power it back up.
How solar energy got so cheap and why it's not everywhere (yet).
