Solar PV

Solar photovoltaic – how it works

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roofs of homes and businesses capture the sun’s energy to
generate electricity cleanly and quietly. Light energy is converted directly into electricity by transferring sunlight photon energy into electrical energy. This conversion takes place within cells of specially fabricated semiconductor crystals.

While it might be true that solar cannot generate electricity all the time, it does generate electricity
when it is needed most – during the day and on hot sunny days when electricity demand is at its peak
driven by air-conditioners.

Importantly, electricity is generated at the point of demand - where people live and work which means there is no need to transfer the energy long distances across expensive infrastructure.

Greenhouse gas savings

Solar power is a zero-emission electricity source. One megawatt hour of solar-derived electricity avoids approximately one tonne of CO2.

In Australia

Solar PV power is installed on almost 200,000 rooftops across Australia. At the end of September 2010 we had over 300 megawatts of solar PV capacity installed nationwide - an increase of almost 10 times in less than two years.

The majority of solar PV installations are grid-connected systems. However solar PV also has a long history of supplying reliable ‘off grid’ power to remote and regional Australian communities.

With the right federal policy in place providing incentives for take-up, we can ensure continued growth of Australia’s solar PV industry.The Clean Energy Council is actively advocating for a gross metering feed in tariff that will be set high enough and for long enough to encourage increased take-up of the technology nationwide.

Potential

As one of the sunniest continents in the world, there is massive potential for solar PV to make a significant contribution to electricity generation in Australia. Couple this unrivalled resource with a multitude of open spaces, and there is no reason why Australia cannot have large scale installations generating many megawatts of electricity for sale into the grid.

Global view

Globally, the annual solar PV market grew to 5,500 megawatts in 2008.The total cumulative PV power installed globally at the end of 2008 was almost 15,000 megawatts up from 9,000 megawatts in 2007. Germany, Spain, Japan and the USA dominate the solar PV industry accounting for 80 per cent of global capacity. The growth in these markets and the emergence of new markets in France, South Korea, Czech Republic and Portugal has driven a sixfold increase in global installed capacity over the last five years.