Clean Energy Australia 2016

The Clean Energy Australia report provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian clean energy sector. The report covers the latest key figures and statistics on the national energy market. It is the only analysis that includes the National Electricity Market, the Western Australian electricity grid and other major regional grids across the country in areas such as the Northern Territory.

While the industry is headed into a boom in 2017, project activity the year before was subdued for large-scale renewable energy. The Moree Solar Farm – the country’s second largest – started to generate power early in the year, leaving a variety of smaller solar power plants and three wind farms as the only projects to be completed. But the aggregate rise of small, medium and large-scale solar led to an increase in solar generation output of 29 per cent. One of the signature trends of the last few years has been the plunging cost of large-scale solar power, a technology that also has shorter project lead times than wind energy – a virtue when the 2020 RET deadline is fast approaching.

It was also a big year for innovative third-party software and systems linking the solar and storage technology of customers with the energy market. This is something that is expected to grow exponentially in the years ahead. While research from solar consultancy SunWiz indicates only 6750 energy storage units were installed in 2016, this was up 13 times on the year before. It is expected that the uptake of battery storage will continue to increase significantly in years ahead. With energy security now a front-ofmind issue for many Australians, this is likely to drive increased sales at the household and business level as unit prices drop and power prices continue to rise.