Rooftop solar installs off to quick start in January, up 23% on last year

Australia’s rooftop solar market continues to beat the odds – and the global pandemics – closing out the first month of 2021 with new installations up nearly one-quarter on the same time last year, even as the industry and took a well earned break.

The latest data from market analysts SunWiz shows that Australian households and businesses added a total of 249MW to the national rooftop solar tally in January, led by installations in New South Wales (77MW), Queensland (60MW), and Victoria (54MW).

The numbers are a 21 per cent drop on the installations recorded in December 2020, but considering January is a typically quiet month, and considering the market has started 2021 with a 23 per cent jump on January 2020, SunWiz calls it a “reasonable start to the year.”

“All the states witnessed a sudden drop in January accounting to the public holidays in December,” SunWiz managing director Warwick Johnston says in the January report.

“There is [also] a slight dip in the capacity registered in most of the commercial size ranges in January,” he adds. Even the average system size dropped slightly to 8.27kW.

On a state-by-state basis, New South Wales continues to lead the monthly installation numbers, a trend that has been playing out for some time now, although Queensland still leads the country for the total installed capacity of rooftop solar (at or below 100kW).

The SunWiz report also notes that the last few months have seen a slight turn around in the share of commercial solar for all of the Australian states, except for Victoria, where residential and small commercial has been the star.