With a pending federal government election likely in the next few months we will be watching with considerable interest to see how the solar industry in Adelaide and Australia more generally will be impacted. The announcement that the future of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation seems assured and that the Turnbull government has announced today a billion dollars to boost the sectors investment, would have to be seen as a positive, particularly if we look back just 12 to 18 months ago when the coalition government seemed ‘hell bent’ on moving away from all incentives aimed at boosting Australia’s renewable energy sector.
Greg Hunt, the environment minister has signaled that he wished to see investment in:
- energy storage technology
- battery technology
- ‘solar’
We have previously discussed the emergence of solar energy storage systems as being the next ‘big thing’ in residential solar panels systems in Adelaide and reports we hear are that solar installers in Adelaide are already getting an increasing number of enquiries for solar storage systems that now make the potential for homes to become totally independent from grid supplied power a distinct possibility. Pricing for solar storage battery systems are still relatively high (particularly if you are looking to store the amounts of energy required to run an average family home in non- daylight hours), but we forecast that, like the cost of solar panels themselves, the prices will drop exponentially as demand and uptake of residential solar storage units increase.