Commercial Solar Boosts Australian PV Market To New High In July
Originally published on RenewEconomy.
Australia’s solar PV market notched up a good month in July, with a major up-tick in volume driven largely by growth in Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian markets, and particularly due to a surge in the commercial (30-100kW) markets in these states.
According to the latest report from solar industry analysts SunWiz, a total of 69MW of solar PV was added for the month, which the report notes is not much to boast about in comparison to 2014 levels, but marks the highest monthly level for 2015 so far, and offers hope of a possible turn around in the fortunes of the market.
Still, 2015 is well short of 2014, the report says, with a total of 419MW registered for the year to July, which is 10 per cent less than this time last year, the report says.
As noted, the trend towards commercial solar continues, with 75+kW systems being particularly popular in July. As the graph below illustrates, commercial solar is now 30 per cent of the solar PV market in Australia, and growing – mostly in the 10-30kW market in the major states, like NSW and South Australia.
“NSW is the go to state for commercial PV, though volumes have fallen back from their peak,” the report says. “Commercial volume is sliding in Queensland and SA, but appears to have turned the corner. Victorian commercial volume is building to be number 2 nationally.”
Reprinted with permission.
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The post sensibly avoids jumping to conclusions about a new trend. But since commercial solar is more a matter of ROI than sentiment, the one-month uptick is promising.
I am inclined to think that both residential and commericial installations will pick up as solar hardware costs fall as the states have little to no room to further cut feed-in tariffs. And maybe, just maybe, we will see an end to the ridiculous shrinking Queensland solar system where the maximum sized system households are allowed to install without special permission from their electricity distributor can now be limited to 3 kilowatts. This is supposedly to protect grid stability. I’m just waiting for them to fix their ommission and ban the installation of electric stoves, air conditioners, hot water systems, clothes dryers, and dish washers without special permission; all of which can have a much larger effect on grid stability than a 3 kilowatt rooftop solar system.
I wonder if I’ll have to wait long?