Rooftop Solar Energy

Rooftop Solar power in the Australian Energy Market

Rooftop Solar Energy Production During 5 March 2020

This graph shows contributions from rooftop solar installations from each region in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

The AEMO make data for domestic rooftop photovoltaics available every 30 minutes. This is in contrast with the data for dispatchable generation, which is available at five minute temporal resolution.

Note: regions for which subregions are present (e.g. QLD1) are not included in totals.

About the Australian Electricity Grid

The electricity grid managed by the AEMO covers New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania and is the world's largest interconnected power system.

The interface between generators (producers of energy) and consumers (industrial users, businesses and homes) is known as the National Electricity Market (NEM). It is the system though which the supply of energy to local distributors is managed, along with the price of that energy.

Most of Australia's electricity needs are fulfilled by power stations which burn fossil fuels like coal and natural gas to drive steam turbines.

A large part is also played by hydroelectric power stations while wind power contributes in line with meteorological conditions.

There are also many smaller generators which use solar technology, biomass, bagasse etc. to create electricity.

A relative newcomer is the installation, en masse, of domestic rooftop solar photovoltaics (PV). AEMO provides daily files summarising the performance of rooftop solar generation by region.