With vast amounts of space, intense sunshine and a leading role in solar power’s creation, Australia is an ideal candidate to take advantage of the solar revolution.
But that’s not been the case so far for large-scale solar. In 2023, Australia fell out of the top 10 countries for solar installations for the first time in three decades.
We’ve seen mega-projects struggle to get off the ground and have been unable to fully capitalise on our geographic advantage.
As is all too common in this space, large-scale solar power has been politicised, with the Nationals calling for renewables projects in regional areas to be scrapped.
AFAIK it’s because there’s not that much money to be made with large scale solar in Australia, when like 3/4ths of the year the wholesale price of electricity is negative due to too much solar there’s not much incentive to build it, the money is in grid firming now (battery/hydro/wind/etc)