The Australian rooftop solar market has experienced another strong month – possibly the highest ever – in February, adding to expectations that 2018 will be another record year for installations.
According to data from Green Energy Markets, there was 117.4MW of rooftop solar that created STCs (certificates) in the month of February.
This is actually higher than the record month of November, but according to GEM’s Tristan Edis, could be clipped back when some systems are identified as invalid.
Still, February had just 20 working days compared to November’s 22, and according to Edis: “These are extraordinary numbers.
“While we expect a fair chunk of this capacity in February in fact reflects installs and sales that were locked in from last year, the market is well above where it was the same time last year, and that ultimately turned into a record year for capacity.”
Interestingly, GEM’s analysis suggests that the bulk of rooftop solar systems between 10kW and 15kW are going on to homes, not businesses, as previously thought. (See graph above and transition from dotted blue component to dotted green).
“It seems that with the large drop in module prices many residential customers are now choosing to max out their roof with as much solar as they can fit,” Edis says.
Among them, or course, are prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, and Cory Bernardi, the climate denying, renewable-dissing former Liberal Senator who now heads his own conservative party, who has a 12kW system of his own.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
