Australia’s largest coal grid leads rooftop solar surge in 2024 market rebound
In March, Australian households and businesses added 272MW of solar PV to their rooftops, as per new data, indicating a slight increase in market growth compared to the previous year. The latest report from solar market analysts SunWiz reveals that the rooftop PV market is gradually expanding in the new year, despite facing some challenges due to the early Easter break.
SunWiz’s managing director, Warwick Johnston, notes that new installation volumes remained stable in March, with fluctuations observed across different states and market segments. Johnston highlights the mixed performance of state volumes, with some states showing improvement while others experienced a decline. For instance, New South Wales saw a 6% increase in installations, contributing significantly to maintaining overall market volumes as Queensland and Victoria saw a slowdown.
Johnston points out that there were variations in monthly changes across different segment ranges. While the residential range remained steady, the lower end of the STC-commercial range (15-50kW) saw improvement, whereas the upper end (50-100kW) witnessed a decline.
The total of 272MW of new rooftop systems, ranging up to 100kW, installed in March has pushed the year-to-date figures approximately 3% higher than the same period last year. The average size of rooftop solar systems also remained constant at 9.64kW in March 2024.
Sophie Vorrath, the editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of Renew Economy, has been reporting on clean energy for over a decade.
