Small-scale renewable energy installation capacity hits 6000 MW

The small-scale renewable energy installation capacity in Australia has reached 6000 MW with around 2.8 million installations, according to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Australian homes and businesses have collectively reached the remarkable milestone of 6000 megawatt capacity, enough to power more than 1.8 million homes or every home in Sydney.

There are now almost 2.8 million small-scale installations in Australia, with Queensland having the largest uptake of systems under the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme.

Clean Energy Regulator Executive General Manager Mark Williamson said these installations now have the capacity to generate or displace approximately 11.2 million megawatt hours of electricity each year.

“More than one in five Australian households now have solar panels installed on their roof, and that’s the highest rate per capita in the world,” Mr Williamson said.

“We’ve also recorded a trend in larger systems being installed over the past few years, with the average capacity of a system increasing by 12 per cent from 2015 to 2016.”

More households, schools, community groups and businesses are looking to install solar panel systems. On top of this, prices are reducing to allow families to afford bigger systems”, Mr Williamson said.

The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme provides incentives to households and businesses by issuing small-scale technology certificates for every megawatt hour of renewable energy generated or displaced by an accredited solar panel, wind, hydro system, solar water heater or air source heat pump.

Small-scale systems include capacity of up to 100 kilowatts, or about 20 times the size of the average household system.

Anyone can jump online and calculate the number of small-scale technology certificates a system may be eligible for using the small generation unit calculator and solar water heater calculator.

More information is available about the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, including the full small-scale renewable energy installation data set.

Small-scale renewable engird installation capacity hits 6000MW
Small-scale renewable engird installation capacity hits 6000MW