Australia’s carbon tax has not played a major role in driving the growth of solar PV industry in the country, so the new administration’s plan to scrap the program is likely to have minimal impact on the solar PV industry in the country, says a report from ClearSky Advisors.
Australia is showing good signs to achieve its target of 20 percent energy generation from renewable energy sources by 2020. The initiative also gets boost from state and territory level initiatives.
Majority of Australia’s installed solar PV has been residential scale, which are mainly driven by traditional feed-in tariff programs and the sale of Small-scale Technology Certificates through the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme.
Australia now boasts one of the highest residential solar penetration rates in the world. However, the growth of the residential PV sector is expected to slow down as national and regional-level support for these policies have declined.
Despite this, the impressive growth of residential solar PV has had other, perhaps unexpected impacts with residential-scale rooftop solar PV costs in Australia now amongst the lowest in the world.
As a result, residential installations will continue to contribute for a greater share of the solar PV installations in Australia, but given the emergence of commercial and utility-scale projects, this sector will no longer be as dominant as it once was, ClearSky Advisors said.
Considering these scenarios, Australia’s solar PV sector could grow by between 70-100% by 2017, the agency said. .
For an average 3kW project, all-in installation costs at $2/W range could cost approximately $6,000. Combined with buyback schemes (net metering), project owners can expect payback periods in the 5-8 year range, ClearSky Advisors said.
picture source: pacificinstitute.anu.edu.au