Australian households could save $9.3 billion on energy bills each year by investing in the untapped solar potential of residential rooftops across the nation, a new report has found.
The Solar Citizens study, released on Sunday, found the nationwide investment would pay for itself in just over five years, and would deliver household savings of $1390 a year on average to millions of Australians.
The findings follow two major solar energy announcements from the federal government in recent weeks, including a $1 billion program designed to boost locally made solar panels.
The new report, based on analysis from the University of NSW, found that while 3.68 million Australian homes had solar panels installed, millions more households were missing out on the technology.
The study identified 45.8 gigawatts of “untapped photovoltaic potential” on residential rooftops, particularly on social housing, apartment buildings and rental homes.
UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering senior research fellow Mike Roberts, who led the study, said the analysis showed many households would benefit from renewable energy with targeted national investments.
“We found there is potential for just over three gigawatts of power on apartments, two gigawatts on social housing, and something like 12 gigawatts on rental housing,” he said.
“A big part of the population has been excluded at the moment but there are solutions.”
The research found a national scheme to install solar panels on 5.7 million homes currently without them would cost $9.8 billion a year for five years, creating 48,000 jobs during that time, but energy savings would surpass the cost within 5.3 years.
With solar panels installed, Australian homes would save $9.3 billion a year for 20 years, it found, with individual households saving as much as $1560 on their energy bills annually.
Solar Citizens national campaigns director Joel Pringle told AAP the study showed people living in apartments or renting a home were often unable to access renewable energy, which would benefit their budgets and the environment.
“There’s a massive potential for solar panels in the private rental market,” he said.
“If we could meet the solar potential for private rentals, for houses that would mean $2.5 billion in energy bill savings or $400 million for people who are renting in apartments.”
Mr Pringle said installing solar panels on social housing should be a simple decision for governments, but incentives, rebates and minimum rental standards would be needed to assist and motivate private landlords to make the switch.
“The upcoming budget is the opportunity for the federal government to let Australians know where they stand on addressing barriers to electrification and rooftop solar uptake,” he said.
The call comes days after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced plans to introduce more financial support for local clean energy products, under a Future Made in Australia Act, and weeks after launching the government’s Solar SunShot program to provide incentives to build solar panels in Australia.
AAP
You mean steal 9 billion from the power companies
Damn when you put it that way, sign me up baby. My nipples hardened when I heard it may impact the companies that gave fucked us over for years
I hate to be the one to soften your nipples, but the power companies are definitely laughing all the way to the bank. You pay to put up solar panels, your excess electricity gets sold to them at 5.6c per kw, and they sell that to your neighbour for 30+c.
But what if everyone has solar? Then they won’t have anyone to sell power to! How will the shareholders profit? It would be a tragedy, surly
We have a lot of solar in Australia, but we are never getting 100% coverage. And because you cant get solar at night, you still need to pay the power company the daily fee and whatever power you use over night.
Batteries. Feed in isn’t really the aim here, it’s time shifting.
Yup, batteries help. But as someone with a battery, you still cant 100% get away from the grid, so your still stuck paying the daily charge. So my power company gets to bill me 80c a day to do nothing, because if there are a couple of rainy days in a row, my battery will deplete and I need the grid.
I have spent 20k on solar and batteries, and the power company gets paid regardless.
I know I’m really late (bored, sorting by top of the month), but have you done the math on whether it may work out cheaper to hook up a generator or something? If you only needed it say, once a month during winter, it might work out cheaper. I don’t have solar, so I’m not sure if you can actually just hook a generator up to your batteries and be done with it, or if it’s more complicated than that, but if that is a thing, it would probably pay itself off over time.
Havent considered generators, but i suspect it wouldnt work out.
I am spending ~$300 per year to keep myself connected to the grid. Maybe a couple extra hundred or so on power I draw from the grid. I assume i would spend far more than that on a suitable sized generator?
Plus my goal was to avoid burning fossil fuels, so a generator kinda defeats that purpose :D
Fair
We have so much uninhabitable land that’s perfect for endless fields of solar panels in Australia. Why we go with the inefficient system of households opting into it is beyond me.
Take a look at the satellite view of the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in California, and be sure to scroll down and to the right… that’s what we should be doing: https://maps.app.goo.gl/UAouV6yJ11GQhVRf9
We do it because you don’t need to go through a bunch of NIMBYs to install it (including the needed transmission infrastructure). We should roll out a shitload of utility scale solar too (and we are) but panels can go on rooftops today and the more emission reduction that happens this decade, the better.
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Carparks.
Shade for vehicles and hectares and hectares of open concrete and bitumen space around the country begging for solar panels.
I was perplexed that next to nobody has solar on their roof in 'strailia. It is the perfect place for solar. I do not get it. Coal lobby too strong? With their “clean coal” bullshit?
Nah, a large amount of people do have solar. It’s mainly renters (due to cheapskate landlords) and those in apartment buildings missing out.
1/3 of the homes according to this article.
I have solar on an investment property as it used to be my home, but there is no incentive to do so when tenants are paying for the power usage.
In fact, there’s a disincentive to do it: if you rent a property with solar panels, you as landlord are on the hook for repairing/maintaining them if anything goes wrong with them.
… You’ve never been to Australia, have you?
In terms of Kilowatt-hours per capita, Australia leads the world (source). In fact, other than The Netherlands and Japan, Australia more than doubles any other nation on this metric.
This article is about the potential for a lot more solar in places like apartment buildings and rental dwellings. Not with the uptake of Solar in general.
You are right, per person Australia is one of the best. Only absolute are they not so great. Having that much area with so few people really makes this massively differ. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
