Another 93MW of solar PV was installed on Australian homes and business in the month of July, as booming markets in every state continue to deliver the nation’s best year to date, with a total of 568MW installed so far in 2017.
In its latest monthly market update, solar analysts Sunwiz said the solar PV market had maintained the record-breaking momentum of the previous two months, painting a picture of “a market that is level – at exceptionally high levels.”
According to Sunwiz, this July marked the second highest ever for registrations in that month, maintaining the record solar tally for any year to date that has put the market 47 per cent ahead of the same time last year.
The report notes that part of the reason for this sustained PV market momentum is that every state is doing so well at the same time, not least Western Australia, which is having its best ever start to the year.
Of course, one significant down-side to the booming installation market has been the sudden drop in small-scale renewable energy certificate (STC) prices – which, as we reported here, caught many PV installers off-guard and pushed up the cost of installing solar by around 10 per cent for households and small business.
According to Sunwiz, STC prices – which last month fell from around $40 to as low as $26 – are likely to keep falling as long as the STC creation rate continues to exceed the target, “something we feel is very likely to happen,” it says.
“So expect a soft STC price that will only turn north in early 2018.”
Elsewhere, the report notes that commercial solar systems of larger than 10kW notched up record high monthly and tri-monthly figures, with 33 per cent of volume in June down to commercial installations.
In July the proportion of commercial fell slightly to 31 per cent, as the volume in the 6-10kW range expanded to 20 per cent of the market.
NSW again led the pack on commercial installs, although it was briefly overtaken by Victoria and then Queensland, “but rounded out July on top again” after Victoria stalled and then Queensland fell, the report says.
In the residential market, average rooftop solar system sizes remained steady at and average of 6.5kW, sustaining a new record.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
This post was published on August 4, 2017 2:23 pm
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It's only early days for the effect on sales to be felt with the recent STC price drop. There will be a market reaction and it will slow sales if the STC price doesn't rally in the next month or two.
If we install 1GW per year, what these figures say we are doing now. It would take 27 years to have enough supply for the entire grid. This means we would do better than expected just with small scale solar! At the end of the day it's less than 1/3 (sticker price is not reality) but even so 30% supply from small scale is massive! With Large solar and wind having massive plans over the next few years there is no reason why we can't hit 100% by 2030! Hydro and batteries like 1414Degrees are critical but very much obtainable in the next 13 years! It would be amazing to see 100% renewable by or before 2030. Even the current trajectory puts us close! Only storage stands in the way right now.