Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator (CER) has said that the vast and sunburnt country has almost reached 2 million small-scale solar systems installed, Renew Economy has reported. What’s more, this is just 8 months after Australia reached the milestone of having 1 million rooftop solar systems installed.
The Clean Energy Regulator said that Australia now has 2 million small-scale “renewable energy systems”, and that total includes 1.83 million small-scale solar systems. It was noted that almost all government subsidies have been withdrawn from small-scale renewable energy installations, but rooftop solar systems are still entitled to renewable energy certificates.
The CER estimates that 2 million installations have the capacity to provide about 6,882 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, with 4,182 gigawatt hours coming from small-scale solar, wind, and hydro installations. About 2,700 gigawatt hours is generated or displaced by solar hot water systems and air source heat pumps. Overall, this equates to the providing electricity to about 1.04 million Australian households for a year.
Renew Economy points out that the combined output of these small-scale installations amounts to more than the base-load capacity of Australia’s largest power utility, Origin Energy. Imagine how much the energy landscape will change when solar power REALLY gets going. It’s only a matter of time.
Via Renew Economy
2 comments… add one