Solar tops renewable energy sources in Australia, says GlobalData

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is Australia’s largest source of renewable energy with a cumulative installed capacity of 4GW in 2014, according to the UK market research company GlobalData.

Solar surpassed wind power, which was 3.8GW in 2014.

Bioenergy is expected to contribute as the next important energy mix in future.

Growth in the country’s solar PV market has been largely due recent developments in policy support from the government, at times which has also included financial incentives, the report said.

GlobalData power senior analyst Siddhartha Raina, said: "The government recently announced the revised Renewable Energy Target (RET) to support emission-intensive industries and slightly reduced the RET from 41 Terawatt hours (TWh) to 33TWh. Despite this, new renewable energy capacity of 6GW still needs to be installed by 2020.

"While feed-in tariffs and renewable energy target schemes, along with other subsidies and support initiatives, have had a major impact on the solar PV and wind industries, the impact of such programs on biopower and small hydro has been minimal.

"Despite this, strong government backing is expected to promote stable growth in the bioenergy sector. Bioenergy capacity amounted to 573.9MW in 2014 and is expected to more than treble to 1.8GW by the end of 2025."

A few regulations are in the process of amendments, such as National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Regulations and the Australian National Registry of Emissions Units Regulations.

Similarly, the Clean Energy Regulator announced to hold the second Emissions Reduction Fund auction for carbon abatement contracts.

Earlier this year, GlobalData has predicted the world’s installed concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) capacity to rise more than fourfold to 1.3GW by 2020 from 282.5MW in 2014.

This growth will be across seven major markets of the US, China, South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Italy and Spain.