Solar panel usage gains in popularity across the globe

Published on Wednesday, Dec 7 2011 by David Sanderson

The usage of solar panels as a source of power has skyrocketed all over the world, with Australia seeing a particular uptake, thanks to its long hours of sunshine.

Over a million Australians now occupy homes that are powered by solar, meaning that the country is well on track to generating a fifth of its overall energy needs from sustainable sources come 2020.

According to a report from the recent South-Africa based United Nations climate change talks, solar was proving so popular in Australia that it was helping to make huge in-roads to the country's renewable energy targets.

Greg Combet, Australian climate change minister, confirmed to the Sydney Morning Herald that work was already underway to link the country's emissions trading scheme with similar schemes across New Zealand and Europe.

This work will be undertaken in a bid to provide a further boost to Australia's push towards green energy. The emissions trading scheme will kick off in July next year with a fixed carbon price, and the country needs to link it to schemes across the globe in order to prevent the price tag of carbon permits rising out of reach.

By linking the schemes, renewable energy in the country will be made more affordable, thus tempting increasing numbers of householders and businesses to opt for it for their power needs.

According to the yearly Clean Energy Australia report, around 9.6 per cent of the country's energy was generated from renewable sources in the 12 months to September.

This represented an increase from 8.7 per cent the previous year. The biggest source of the green energy was found to be hydroelectricity, according to the report, whilst wind energy and solar energy also made up a good proportion of the overall amount.

Part of 500,000 households and 1.2 million people's everyday power needs were now met in some form or other by the sun, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. Boosted as a result of state feed-in tariffs, the number of solar panel installations on rooftops across the country grew far faster than predicted, rising by more than 35 times the levels seen in 2008.

However, Kane Thornton, director of the Clean Energy Council, told the newspaper that the reduction in tariffs could cause the number of installations to slow.

“There will be a slowdown in the short-term but the medium and long-term outlook is for very strong growth for household solar systems,'' he said.

Grid parity in some parts of Queensland and NSW has already been reached in terms of solar power, which means that a household with solar panels will pay the same amount per kilowatt of energy for both solar or coal-fired energy. It is expected to be reached across the rest of the country within a year or two.

Australian climate change minister Mr Combet has recently held talks with Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for international climate change negotiations, alongside Japanese and US equivalents, in order to mull the strong future of solar power across the globe.

To read more about solar energy, go to theEnergy Saving Trustwebsite.