Australia installed 107.56 MW of rooftop solar capacity in August 2020, an increase of 67 MW compared to 175 MW installed in the same month last year.

In all, Australia has installed 2,530,881 rooftop solar systems totaling 11.94 GW in cumulative installed solar capacity, as on August 31, 2020. These figures were provided by Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator (CER).

Australia has been consistently expanding solar installations to meet its rising energy requirements.

It installed 10.22 GW of cumulative rooftop PV systems in 2019, 7.97 GW in 2018, 6.47 GW in 2017, 5.4 GW in 2016, 4.7 GW in 2015, 3.9 GW in 2014, 3.1 GW in 2013, 2.4 GW in 2012, and 1.3 GW in 2011.

Recently, Australia’s Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, said that the government would invest $18 billion through new investments in low-emission technologies over the next ten years to reduce carbon emissions. Australia wants to drive in at least $50 billion of overall new investment over the next decade. The minister also released the government’s first ‘low-emission technology statement’ intending to make new technologies as affordable as existing technologies to reduce emissions and create more jobs.

Meanwhile, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency recently received a funding package worth $1.62 billion from the government to enhance the utilization of low-emission technologies to cut emissions across the chain. ARENA said that the new funding would allow the agency to carry on its work with energy industry participants, research institutes, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and other agencies to support low-emission technologies across the innovation chain.

Notably, Western Australia’s Oakajee Strategic Industrial Area has invited expressions of interest from corporations and businesses worldwide to produce renewable hydrogen. The Oakajee SIA is a designated, greenfield strategic industrial area, located 435 km north of Western Australia’s capital city of Perth. The last date for the submission of bids is December 24, 2020.

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