The rise of rooftop solar in our carbonfree energy future John Bradley, CEO, Energy Networks Australia*
Customers will drive the transformation of Australia’s electricity sector as world-leading adopters of renewable energy resources.
T
he story of the evolution of Australia’s energy
2050. It forecasts up to 10 million Australian households and small
system often focuses on the role of large-scale
customers will have distributed energy resources like solar, battery
wind and solar generation. While integrating large-
storage, smart homes and electric vehicles by 2050.
scale variable renewable energy will be vital into
Analysis by CSIRO for the Roadmap shows that in Queensland, for
the future, the rapid uptake of distributed energy
example, rooftop solar panels are set to increase by more than 500%
resources such as solar and battery storage will
by 2030, with more than 10,000 MWh in small-scale battery storage.
be at the heart of this transformation.
This means in 2030, just over a decade, Queensland’s electricity system
The Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap developed by En-
would need to integrate the equivalent of 760,000 residential battery
ergy Networks Australia and CSIRO is an evidence-based plan detailing
storage systems. By the same time, the state’s solar PV generation
what needs to be done during the next decade to provide Australians
capacity would be almost as large as its current coal-fired generation
with secure and affordable energy and to decarbonise electricity by
capacity. This reflects both wider customer adoption of rooftop solar
12 Sustainability Matters - Jun/Jul 2017
www.SustainabilityMatters.net.au