This month Australian solar PV installations have reached the milestone of 2GW. The news comes from analysis of the REC registry by solar consultancy SunWiz.
Reneweconomy reports that this threshold has been paradoxically reached by acceleration rather than deceleration of government incentives. The announcement to cuts in subsidies has caused many households to act faster to beat the reductions.
Most significant of these was the feed in tariff reduction this year in Queensland. This was met by almost 100,000 people registering for the higher rate before the cut-off date. It has been speculated that these cuts have caused a much higher rate of installs than would have otherwise occured if the feed in tariffs remained at the same level.
Warwick Johnson of consultancy group Sunwiz recommends that there are gradual adjustments in tariffs and subsidies to avoid the boom and bust scenarios that have happened in the past.
