Australia reaches 2 GW solar milestone

Friday, 16 November, 2012

November 2012 marks a photovoltaic (PV) milestone for Australia. This month, cumulative Australian PV installations reached 2 GW - equivalent to 2,000,000 kW.

PV installations in Australia have paradoxically accelerated, rather than decelerated, after the removal of government incentives, according to SunWiz Market Insights.

In Queensland, for instance, July to December 2011 saw steady but low levels of PV installation; installations in January to June 2012 were significantly greater than at the same period in 2011.

According to SunWiz, this was caused by last year’s reduction in solar multipliers from 5x to 3x setting off a surge in installations as customers sought to maximise the use of available government incentives.

“Most people are happy to wait for a better deal, knowing that PV prices are likely to continue to decline,” SunWiz said. “However, when governments remove incentives, people will act very quickly to ensure they get the best possible deal. The nature of the SRES and state feed-in tariffs has been for steep step-declines in incentive levels that have, in all likelihood, resulted in more PV installed now than might have otherwise been the case.

“So today’s 2 GW milestone should not be taken as evidence that no further support for PV is needed; to the contrary, PV retailers in many states are struggling to rewrite business models to accommodate lower volumes now that the second-last boom has bust,” said SunWiz.

“There will be much less work once the backlog of Queensland systems are installed, and SunWiz/Solar Business Services’ Forecast suggest 2013 volumes may only be half their 2012 level (predicted to exceed 900 MW this year), with South Australia to eliminate its tariff in Q3 2013. Today’s milestone provides evidence of the need for a smarter way to gradually and incrementally reduce PV support in line with market conditions, rather than causing another bust by creating an incentive-reduction boom.”

Read the rest of SunWiz’s comments on the Australian PV milestone here.