Australia’s Solar Capacity Exceeds 25 GW

• APVI counts Australia's total installed solar PV capacity as on December 31, 2021 to have reached 25.3 GW
• It came from more than 3.04 million installations
• New annual additions reached 4.6 GW based on APVI estimates
• Australia has more PV/capita installed than any other country

The Australian PV Institute (APVI) says, Australia's cumulative installed solar PV capacity went up to 25.3 GW by end of 2021 with the help of over 3.04 million installations. This would translate into 'more solar per capita than anywhere else in the world'.

With a population of about 25.7 million, Australia installed  984 watt per capita by the end of the year, probably followed by Europe's No. 1, the Netherlands, which reached 765 W/capita at the same time, according to SolarPower Europe's EU Market Outlook 2021.

At the end of December 2020, the total installed solar PV capacity of Australia, as per APVI, was 20.71 GW, which means in 2021 it deployed more than 4.61 GW. Details are available on the website of APVI.

However, according to local renewable energy news portal Renew Economy, in 2021 Australia added 5.2 GW of new PV capacity making it a record-breaking year for solar, comprising 3.24 GW rooftop solar capacity installed by residential and business segments. By the beginning of 2022, the cumulative PV numbers had grown to 26.9 GW.

Till the reported date, Australia's accredited or operational capacity of large scale capacity was 14.79 GW, according to the government's Clean Energy Regulator (CER).

In May 2021, GlobalData said Australia's cumulative installed solar PV capacity is expected to grow over 80.22 GW in 2030, driven mainly by renewable energy auctions and feed-in-tariffs (FIT) provided to projects (see Australia Could Add More Than 60 GW PV By 2030).