| Australian Solar Shines in 2009 | Learning how to capitalize upon net feed-in tariffs.
Despite the global financial crisis, the Australian solar power industry grew a phenomenal 366% in 2009. Driven by a rebate that enabled "free" solar power systems to be sold, installations of grid connected solar power systems grew even eclipsed past-years' 200% growth. Will Australia be able to repeat these figures in 2010, now that the federal government's rebate has been substituted for a far less generous point-of-sale discount?
In 2009, over 56 MW of grid-connected solar power was installed in Australia. This is 3.66x the 12.2 MW installed in 2008, which itself was 2.13x the 4.3 MW installed in 2007 (Figure 1). Can Australia continue this trajectory and install 208 MW in 2010?
Figure 1: Rebated Australian Grid Connected Solar Power Installations (kW/year). Source: Source: Solar Homes and Communities Program statistics.
Unfortunately, the short answer is ‘no’. It’s quite possible that 2010 may actually see a fall in Australian PV installations. Much of the past years’ growth was driven by an A$8/Watt federal government rebate (capped at $8,000), which when combined with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) meant that zero-cost 1 kW solar power systems were being offered by a number of companies. The value of upfront government support measures has more than halved since the government rebate was replaced by Solar Credits, a point-of-sale discount based upon the market value of a multiplied number of RECs. Put simply, PV is no longer free, so white-hot sales have cooled considerably.
Indeed, the Australian PV industry may face a bumpy ride in 2010. The ability to sell free systems at a reasonable profit attracted a large number of new market entrants towards the end of 2008, which saw installations quickly ramp up in the first half of 2009, before the government’s snap decision to end the rebate stunned the industry. While Solar Credits legislation was being passed, the industry got to work installing the backlog of 63 MW of systems that had been issued pre-approval for the rebate.
The industry’s ability to sell solar power took a further setback when the price of RECs plunged from $50 to $30, meaning the value of Solar Credits (in effect a REC multiplier for the first 1.5kW of installed capacity) dived from $5150 to $3090 for a 1 kW system (from $7750 to $4650 for a 1.5 kW system). At the same time as a geared-up industry started installing 8 MW a month, sales volumes plummeted. | | 2010-04-29 09:22:57 Posted by: admin |
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