Australia will add 7GW of renewable energy capacity in 2020

    According to new data from Australia's clean energy regulator, to a certain extent, due to a 40% year-on-year increase in rooftop Solar Panel Energy solar installed capacity, Australia's renewable energy capacity will exceed previous expectations in 2020.

    Due to the earlier-than-expected operating hours of several utility solar and wind power projects, driven by this, the newly added renewable energy capacity was 7GW, exceeding the regulator's expectation of 6.3GW this year.

    The 4GW of new capacity is a large-scale project, including 1.7GW of solar energy and 2.3GW of wind energy. Lower technology costs and the shift of household spending to housing improvements during COVID-19 have led to an increase in rooftop photovoltaic installed capacity, which was 3GW during the year.

     The clean energy regulator said that due to the new rooftop projects, coupled with record solar and wind power production capacity "to a large extent replaced" Australia's thermal power generation in the fourth quarter, which to a certain extent led to a decline in operating demand.

   Between 2018 and 2020, Australia added 18.3GW of renewable energy power generation, with an investment of 26.5 billion Australian dollars (US$20.5 billion).

    David Parker, chairman of the clean energy regulator, said, “At the end of 2020, the total renewable energy generation of the National Electricity Market (NEM) has climbed to more than 30%, an increase of 5% over the previous year, which is not surprising."

    New South Wales is the state with the highest rooftop photovoltaic utilization rate, with an additional capacity of 311MW in the fourth quarter. Western Australia added 117MW of rooftop photovoltaics in the fourth quarter. According to the state’s energy roadmap, the growth of household solar installations will replace the growth of coal-fired power stations and utility solar power stations.

    Based on the large number of undelivered rooftop projects that will be carried over in 2021, the clean energy regulator predicts that 3GW-4GW of home and commercial rooftop photovoltaic projects will be developed this year.

    A recent report by Fitch Solutions predicts that Australia’s energy transition will accelerate thanks to Australia’s “rapid progress” in green hydrogen. It is estimated that by 2030, Australia's non-hydropower capacity will account for 30.1% of the total electricity structure.