IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2015 - 53

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Solar, Solar
Everywhere
By Bruce Mountain and Paul Szuster

A

AT THE END OF 2014, 16% OF AUSTRALIA'S
detached and semidetached houses-nearly 1.4 million
homes-had photovoltaic (PV) systems on their roofs. That
makes Australia, by a wide margin, the global leader in
rooftop PV installation per household. This outcome was
achieved from a negligible base at the start of 2010, and such
rapid expansion was widely unexpected.
This article documents the rise of rooftop PV in Australia. We explain why rooftop PV has grown as quickly as it
has and consider the outcomes that this has produced. The
currency used in this article is Australian (AU) dollars,
which was worth US$.80 at the time of writing.

The Rise of Rooftop PV Systems
in Australia
Between the end of 2007 and end of 2014, the number of
PV systems installed on the rooftops of Australian homes
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2015.2416113
Date of publication: 25 June 2015

july/august 2015

Opportunities and
Challenges for Australia's
Rooftop PV Systems
increased from 8,000 to 1.4 million as shown in Figure 1,
broken down by Australian state.
The average size of PV systems in Australia is small by
global standards. For example, Germany, the global leader
in PVs, had an average system size per installation at the end
of 2012 of 40 kWpeak. The comparative figure in Australia is
just 4 kWpeak.
The size of rooftop PV systems in Australia has progressively increased from 1.1 kW for systems installed in 2009
to 4 kW for systems installed in 2014. The small system size

1540-7977/15©2015 IEEE

ieee power & energy magazine

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2015

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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2015 - Cover3
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