With over 1.4 million households that have solar installed, Australia has more individual households with rooftop solar than any other country in the world.
At the end of 2014, Germany had a similar number of individual systems, but this included a large number of utility-scale and commercial plants, while the next biggest individual installed base was in the US with 700,000 residential solar installations followed by the UK with around 600,000.
Australia’s lead in residential solar arises from a unique combination of climate, policy and consumer awareness. With only a fraction of the population of competitor nations, Australia is a demonstration platform for the future of distributed energy.
It comes as no surprise then that the developers of new technology in the renewable energy space – including Australian companies such as Ergon, Solar Analytics and PV Lighthouse – are establishing new international best practice in the deployment of new technologies.
International companies such as Trina, Toyota, Panasonic, Tesla and the Californian Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) are looking to Australia for market opportunities.
A number of these companies will be presenting on developments in solar energy technology at the APVI Asia Pacific Solar Research Conference in Brisbane on 8-10 December – Pierre Verlinden of Trina Solar, Danny Kennedy of CalCEF, Michelle Taylor of Ergon Energy, Rui Tang of Solar Analytics and Malcolm Abbott of PV Lighthouse.
These industry leaders will be joined by some of Australia’s leading consultants in solar project deployment and notable keynote speakers Professor Martin Green of UNSW, Louise Vickery of ARENA, and Dr Greg Wilson of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratories.
The conference is hosted by APVI in partnership with the Australian Centre for Advanced PV (ACAP), SMA Australia and the CRC for Low Carbon Living.
APVI is a network of industry, research and government working together on PV research and analysis. The APVI acts to provide a leading source of independent information and advice on PV trends.
