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The archive behind the open month. Each closed month keeps the entries it held, and the reading the desk wrote when it closed, where one was written.
A month is closed with one reading written against what it held, on the day it closed. The months below closed before that boundary existed, so none was written at the time. Writing one now would be a summary composed after the fact and presented as a contemporaneous reading, so each of them prints its entries and nothing else.
8 entries · no reading written at close
Market update
Product evidence
The Clean Energy Council's approved battery list, as published by the Clean Energy Regulator (file last modified 24 September 2026), holds 3,619 rows. Of the 2,152 rows approved between 1 January and 30 June 2026, 1,750 sit under one certificate-holder account, Sigenergy Technology Co Ltd, and 1,740 of those carry a single approval date, 16 April 2026, on which no other account has a row. Two accounts in the file carry the brand name Sigenergy; together they hold 2,078 rows, 57.4 per cent of the list, the same count in each of the six releases of the file read between 10 August and 24 September 2026, so any change in that share has come from the other accounts' rows.
Market update
Rooftop solar and storage counts
The Clean Energy Council's Rooftop Solar and Storage Report for January to June 2026, published on 29 September 2026, states that its installation data now comes from Green Energy Markets, replacing SunWiz, for all data from January 2019, while four of its charts still draw on earlier SunWiz-based editions. It counts applications submitted to the Clean Energy Regulator in each period, including some still in compliance review. It reports 180,878 rooftop solar systems and 1,894 MW for the half, 276,011 batteries for the half, and 457,439 batteries and 12.9 GWh for the first twelve months of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program. Its cumulative solar figure now counts from January 2019 and stands at 21,979 MW at June 2026; the report states that earlier editions carried all-time totals on a different basis and are not directly comparable.
Publication
Forecast accountability
Three consecutive AEMO Forecast Accuracy Reports, read on one axis, grade the Central scenario forecast of installed NEM rooftop PV at 30 June against the estimated actual: -2.2% for the 2022 ESOO, -6.5% for the 2023 ESOO and +5.5% for the 2024 ESOO. The 2024 ESOO over-forecast all five regions, South Australia by 9.8% and Tasmania by 1.2%, after the 2023 ESOO had under-forecast four of them, Tasmania by 12.0% and New South Wales by 11.0%.
Market update
Consumer energy regulation
The Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council met on 11 September 2026 and agreed to explore pathways to support the safe deployment of plug-in consumer energy resource devices in Australia. The Commonwealth, in partnership with states and territories, will identify measures that enable their safe use and report back to Energy Ministers this year on next steps. At the same meeting Ministers endorsed the Consumer Energy National Technical Regulatory Framework. Alongside forthcoming Commonwealth legislation, the Framework is to establish a nationally consistent approach to the technical regulation of consumer energy resources, and a Consumer Energy National Technical Regulator will enforce its requirements Australia-wide. The Regulator is being established with Commonwealth funding as a new function of the Clean Energy Regulator, with an intended establishment of mid-2027 subject to the passage of legislation. The Clean Energy Regulator's page on the role, updated 14 September 2026, lists the functions the Framework sets out for it: registering suppliers and accrediting installers, certifying regulated products and maintaining public lists of certified products, collecting and managing information about installed devices, and monitoring compliance. Ministers other than Queensland also agreed to release a consultation package on the National Electricity Market wholesale market settings reforms, with final decisions on the legislative package scheduled for the December meeting in Hobart.
Market update
Incentive structure
The Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (Amendment No. 2) Rule 2026, approved by the NSW Minister for Energy in June 2026 and commenced on 1 July 2026, adds three battery activity definitions under which peak reduction certificates may be created for installations completed on or after 1 September 2026. BESS3 applies at an apartment building with at least four dwellings, and BESS4 and BESS5 at a site that is not a residential building or a data centre. BESS3 and BESS4 require a usable battery capacity above 20 kWh and up to 200 kWh, and a purchaser payment of at least $1,000 and $5,000 excluding GST per unit respectively; BESS5 requires a usable capacity above 200 kWh and up to 30,000 kWh, tested to UL 9540A. All three require the equipment to be listed on the scheme administrator's approved product list and installed at an address connected to the New South Wales electricity network. The same rule keeps clause 6.10: no certificates may be created from the household activity BESS1 for an installation dated after 30 June 2025 until the Minister nominates a date in the Gazette, with an exemption from 1 July 2026 for government-owned and managed sites and exempt energy programs. The household demand response activity BESS2 continues at Class 1 buildings and small business sites, and a vehicle-to-grid activity, V2G1, is written into the rule with a commencement date still to be gazetted.
Market update
SWIS policy
Energy Policy WA has published its consultation summary report and all 23 submissions on the DER data and connections issues paper, closing the consultation this site read on 29 July 2026. The Department of Energy and Economic Diversification states it intends to develop an exposure draft of changes to the Electricity System and Market Rules for reform proposals 1 to 5, and that it will continue to discuss proposals 6 and 7, both of which concern virtual power plants, with stakeholders before incorporating them into proposed changes. The 23 submissions comprise 6 from electricity retailers and aggregators, 5 from research groups and consultants, 5 from industry bodies, 4 from private individuals, 2 from system and market operators and 1 from a resources company, and the department met separately with eight stakeholders during the submission period. Of those who addressed an individual proposal, the department records that at least two-thirds supported or strongly supported each except proposal 7, where more than half did, that support was strongest for proposals 2, 3 and 4 at close to three-quarters favourable, and that no response indicated strong opposition to any proposal. A full response to feedback is to be published alongside the exposure draft, and the exposure draft goes to a further round of consultation before final changes are recommended to the Minister for Energy and Decarbonisation.
Market update
Battery subsidy schedule
The Clean Energy Regulator and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water publish the same STC factor schedule for the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, running in half-yearly steps to the end of 2030. The factor sets how many small-scale technology certificates a battery creates per kWh of usable capacity, and so sets the size of the discount. It was 8.4 for January to April 2026, fell to 6.8 on 1 May 2026, and falls to 5.7 on 1 January 2027, then 5.2, 4.6, 4.1, 3.6, 3.1, 2.6 and 2.1 through to December 2030, a cumulative fall of 75 per cent from the January 2026 value. Nine steps are scheduled and one has occurred. The 1 May 2026 change also introduced a capacity taper: the factor applies in full to the first 14 kWh of usable capacity, at 60 per cent from 14 to 28 kWh, and at 15 per cent from 28 to 50 kWh, with the Regulator stating that only the first 50 kWh of usable capacity is eligible for certificates. Both agencies state the factor is adjusted in line with falling battery costs so that the discount stays at around 30 per cent of the upfront installed cost. The schedule sits in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Regulations 2001 as amended, finalised 5 February 2026 and commenced 1 May 2026.
Market update
Capacity price benchmark
The Coordinator of Energy published a Draft Determination for the 2026 Benchmark Technology Review on 9 September 2026, with submissions open until 5:00pm WST on 7 October 2026. It proposes that the Benchmark Technology for both the Peak and Flexible Benchmark Reserve Capacity Prices be an E-Class simple cycle gas turbine, certified for Reserve Capacity on distillate with preference to run on gas when practical, connected at an unconstrained node on Clean Energy Link North. The paper puts the estimated annualised fixed capital and fixed operating and maintenance cost of that configuration at $344,893 per MW and states it is 26 per cent below a seven-hour battery. The review was required under clause 4.16.11(b) of the Electricity System and Market Rules because the Electric Storage Resource Duration Requirement rose from six hours to seven hours in the 2026 WEM Electricity Statement of Opportunities, and the paper records that the seven-hour requirement rules the current Benchmark Technology ineligible on duration. That current benchmark is a 200 MW six-hour battery, which the Economic Regulation Authority priced at $488,500 per MW per year for both capacity types in the 2028/29 capacity year on 13 March 2026, 35 per cent above the 2025 price of $360,700. A second proposal retains a gross cost of new entry approach. Nothing is determined: this is a consultation draft.
18 entries · no reading written at close
Market update
Panel end-of-life
The Cook Government's 2026-27 State Budget allocates $17.8 million to solar panel and embedded battery recycling under Remade in WA, announced 3 June 2026: $13 million to establish end-of-life solar panel collection and recycling pathways for households and solar farms, $3 million for embedded battery collection at local government facilities, and $1.8 million for ongoing delivery of both programs. On 25 August 2026 the Smart Energy Council, with support from the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, opened a survey of WA solar tradespeople on the practical challenges of collecting and recovering end-of-life panels, closing 9 September 2026, stating the responses will inform how a future solar panel stewardship scheme could work on the ground. The Commonwealth's $24.7 million National Solar Panel Recycling Pilot, announced 16 January 2026 to establish about 100 collection sites and recycle up to 250,000 panels, sought an administrator through an approach to market that closed 24 April 2026. As at 17 August 2026 the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said procurement had not been completed and that the government remains committed to the pilot. No product stewardship framework for solar panels is in force.
Market update
DER market access
Synergy opened expressions of interest for the initial Third Party Aggregator Panel on 24 August 2026, open for four weeks. Panel membership is required before a third party aggregator can provide market services to AEMO or Western Power using the distributed energy resources of non-contestable customers. Under clause 2.34C(1) of the Electricity System and Market Rules, Synergy is the only market participant permitted to make a Non-Co-optimised Essential System Service, Supplementary Capacity or Demand Side Program submission involving a non-contestable customer, a role the framework names Parent Aggregator. Services are limited to network support, peak capacity and minimum demand services, plus Supplementary Capacity. Synergy's framework of 2 February 2026 committed it to commence this process by 1 September 2026 following publication of the TPA Model Contract, and execution of that contract is a pre-condition of inclusion.
Market update
Connection pipeline
Ofgem's Curate consultation, opened 29 July 2026 and closing 16 September 2026, states that contracted demand in Great Britain's connection queue rose from 41 GW to 125 GW between November 2024 and June 2025, moving from 17 GW to 97 GW on transmission. It puts around 73 GW of that total queue in data centres, across around 315 projects ranging from 1 MW to 1,500 MW, and states peak demand in Great Britain in 2025 was 45 GW. Ofgem's press release of the same date instead attributes at least 80 GW to the increase, which is 84 GW, while also referring to the consultation's 73 GW. Ofgem proposes a returnable commitment fee of approximately £237,500 to £712,500 per MW for data centre projects above 40 MW, alongside queue management milestones.
Publication
Product evidence
Aggregating the Clean Energy Regulator's published approved battery file on 18 August 2026 returns 3,526 rows, of which 2,947, or 83.6 per cent, carry an expiry date of 31 December 2027, across 102 manufacturer accounts. No row carries a later date. The Clean Energy Council states that batteries approved under the outgoing Best Practice Guide were given expiry dates no later than that date as the list transitions to SA TS 5398, published by Standards Australia on 10 October 2025. From 1 January 2027 only applications under the new specification are accepted.
Publication
Consumer protection governance
The New Energy Tech Consumer Code published its first independent review on 12 August 2026, conducted by PATHMAKER in partnership with grids and commissioned by the NETCC Code Monitoring and Compliance Panel, three years after the program launched. It carries 10 recommendations across four areas: the future role of the Code, a scalable operating model, enhanced compliance and consumer confidence, and responsiveness to new technologies and business models. Separately, the Clean Energy Council applied on 26 August 2025 to revoke authorisation AA1000439 and substitute AA1000702; the ACCC granted interim authorisation on 11 September 2025 and issued a draft determination on 28 May 2026 proposing to grant authorisation with conditions for five years, with consultation closing 25 June 2026.
Market update
Wholesale market transparency
The Minister for Energy has amended the Electricity (Standard Products) Wholesale Arrangements 2014, gazetted 11 August 2026 and commencing 30 September 2026. The Economic Regulation Authority's 2025 review of the Electricity Generation and Retail Corporation Scheme recommended three amendments and all three were made: Synergy must publish further detail on its standard product pricing method; an error introduced in 2023 is rectified so that Synergy is again restricted from offering buy-side standard products to entities with market power; and outdated references across the instrument are updated. The Department of Energy and Economic Diversification's consultation on the exposure draft closed on 9 June 2026 and received one submission.
Publication
Network transparency
Western Power states that its interactive Network Opportunity Map is updated daily at 8:30am AWST, covering capacity and emerging opportunities at zone substation and feeder level, with spatial data available for download. The Network Opportunity Map and Transmission System Plan are annual, produced under the Electricity Network Access Code and the Electricity System and Market Rules respectively. A CKAN package_search on the western-power organisation at data.wa.gov.au returned 36 datasets on 14 August 2026, including a forward capacity series giving forecast remaining capacity per substation supply catchment in MVA bands, with editions read directly for 2026, 2027, 2028, 2030, 2033 and 2034. WP-050, the layer describing the network's ability to connect extra mid-sized generation, is marked retired with a last update of 13 October 2022.
Publication
Standards compliance
The Clean Energy Regulator's battery inspection program, running since 15 July 2025, has assessed 2,642 systems to 8 June 2026: 1,650 substandard (62.45 per cent), 970 adequate (36.71 per cent) and 22 unsafe (0.83 per cent). Its rooftop solar program, on a random sample of 2,532 systems in 2024-25, rated 18.6 per cent of 2024-installed systems substandard and 0.4 per cent unsafe. At checklist-item level, 213,096 of 227,945 battery items complied, 11,913 drew a recommendation for improvement, 2,910 required rectification and 26 were unsafe.
Data release
Product evidence
The 10 August CER module list added three ClearVue models, while three DAS Solar records reached the expiry dates already carried by the source list.
Data release
Product evidence
The 10 August CER inverter list added 12 Fronius, seven Pixii and three Hoymiles exact configurations. Eighteen existing SolaX, SAJ and GoodWe records received later expiry dates.
Data release
Product evidence
The 10 August CER battery list added ten Hinen configurations, six Pylon Technologies configurations and one Each Energy model. Seventeen existing SolaX and PowerPlus records received later expiry dates.
Market update
Incentive structure
The Commonwealth announced on 5 August 2026 that the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme threshold rises from 100 kW to 1 MW, taking around 20 per cent off the installed cost of a medium-sized system: about $68,000 on a 250 kW system and about $136,000 on a 500 kW system. Australia holds 22 GW of residential solar against roughly 5.6 GW commercial, most of it below the current 100 kW ceiling, on Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis figures the release cites.
Publication
Grid methodology
The report separates production and consumption accounting, operational and lifecycle factors, imports, storage treatment, temporal resolution and source revisions.
Data release
Forecast accountability
Four dated third-party forecasts enter the public ledger: AEMO's 2028-29 capacity balance, its 2026-27 rooftop PV stock, its 2028-29 coordinated-VPP peak reduction, and the Oxford Economics FY30 data-centre consumption figure AEMO publishes.
Publication
SWIS operations
The report joins rooftop-solar pressure, evening ramps, distributed-asset visibility, coordinated flexibility and forecast accountability without calling every SWIS threshold globally portable.
Publication
Solar economics
The WA case keeps import displacement, DEBS export, storage and curtailment separate, then joins the current tariff edition to the fixed SWIS distributed-asset baseline.
Publication
Grid synthesis
Five 2025 systems are compared across variable-renewable share and production carbon intensity while ramps, congestion, storage and market availability remain explicitly outside the annual measure.
Data release
Monthly reference
The August reference edition keeps annual context, NEM and SWIS operator records, distributed adoption and market-value evidence in separate source-versioned lanes.
20 entries · no reading written at close
Publication
SWIS scenarios
A fixed May 2026 CER baseline now sits beside a separately classified 2030 conditional range for small-scale solar and distributed batteries.
Publication
Standards
Amendment 2 to AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 took effect on 23 August 2025. Mode 4, with the inverter in the wall-side supply equipment, is settled and carries listed products. Mode 3, with the inverter in the vehicle, is permitted but its listing route is not resolved.
Publication
SWIS policy
Energy Policy WA has seven proposals out on how distributed energy data is collected, verified and shared across the SWIS. The brief names three limitations met while building the SWIS picture: postcode-to-network allocation, a twelve-month certificate lag, and capacity published where a constraint series is needed.
Method update
Solar economics
The WA temporal value model now prices self-consumption by the hour it lands rather than at a single flat rate, and sizes storage anywhere from 0 to 50 kWh instead of offering two fixed options.
Publication
Climate attribution
Removing anthropogenic warming drops 70 of 71 recently bleached regions below moderate risk. At the 2025 temperature level, warming outweighs a strong El Nino in 71 of 74 regions where both signals are statistically significant.
Data release
Transition accountability
Twelve bounded records now separate forecasts, market permission, delivery dependencies, observed operation and later revisions across the initial Australian and global solar cohort.
Publication
Australian evidence
The register joins Australian product eligibility, distributed adoption, grid operation, realised storage-market capture, regulated tariffs and forecast accountability into one fixed reference edition, with a quality declaration and verification boundary published beside each layer.
Publication
Climate science
A 7,083-run Caltech-Google ensemble finds a positive +0.14 W/m2/K warming-only feedback and a stronger +0.43 W/m2/K total response in the combined +4 K and quadrupled-CO2 state.
Publication
Market data
A July 2026 Ember analysis finds seven EU countries could connect about 25 gigawatts of new wind and solar, roughly 18 per cent of what they plan to add by 2030, by co-locating it behind the connection points their existing hydropower plants already hold.
Publication
Forecast accountability
The report finds AEMO's one data-centre demand forecast produces two different published percentages depending on the denominator: almost 10 per cent of underlying demand by 2050, or 12 per cent of grid-supplied consumption by FY50, with the gap between them mostly rooftop solar.
Publication
Market structures
Western Australia has committed up to A$150 million in grant funding to a 50 megawatt, 500 megawatt-hour, ten-hour vanadium flow battery for the Goldfields. The tender closed on 20 July 2026 with no proponent named, no site confirmed and no total capital cost yet public.
Publication
SWIS outlook
A new brief reads AEMO's ten-year Expected scenario alongside the observed SWIS record without treating forecast capacity, VPP behaviour or demand as measured outcomes.
Data release
Product evidence
The monitored record now holds current Australian module, inverter and battery files plus the California PV module list, with source versions and retrieval times retained.
Method update
Research standard
Grid Mix now distinguishes provider annual releases, versioned ledger rows and fixed published snapshots, while the methodology names licensed inputs instead of making a blanket public-source claim.
Method update
SWIS reference
The two recent CER installation windows are retained as recorded cohorts but are no longer interpreted as demand momentum; the 2025 ABS population value is marked preliminary and 2022-2024 revised.
Data release
Energy data
Each Grid Mix Monitor system now has a monthly transition view from 2016, joining Ember generation and carbon-intensity series to a named NASA POWER solar-resource reference point.
Data release
Energy data
A new open comparison surface tracks the 2025 annual generation mix, renewable share, solar share and carbon intensity across ten selected electricity systems.
Data release
Market structures
The first quarterly capture ledger covers all 60 bidirectional batteries registered in the National Electricity Market, with commissioning units flagged separately from full-quarter assets.
Publication
Market structures
Solar Analytica begins a dedicated line for the indices, spreads and realised capture that frame storage revenue cases, starting with a transparent NEM battery reference.
Data release
Solar economics
The price-times-yield join is now available as an interactive reference across 28 matched markets, sortable by value, sunlight and retail price.
5 entries · no reading written at close
Publication
Production climate
The annual synthesis closes the first production-climate series, joining the latest readings for heat, sky conditions, variability, soiling, wind and physical risk.
Publication
Production climate
The series capstone joins every climate variable to yield and local tariff across 23 priced markets, finding the ranking inverts: dim Berlin earns more per kilowatt than all but two markets, while sun-rich Riyadh ranks 21st.
Publication
Scenario planning
The report aggregates ITRPV, CPIA, Exawatt and NREL roadmaps into a scenario range for 2030's monocrystalline-silicon technology mix, after finding the underlying roadmaps disagree by wide margins and revise within a single year.
Data release
Solar economics
The demand-side dataset tracks household retail tariffs across 92 cities and 70 countries from 2016 to 2025, preserving confidence notes where a local series is less certain.
Publication
Production climate
The report prices whether a system survives rather than how much it produces, finding hail seriously threatens only Johannesburg and Sydney among 40 markets, extreme wind governs 13, flood 11, and five markets face no material hazard at all.
4 entries · no reading written at close
Publication
Production climate
Mean wind speed across 40 markets runs from a near-still 1.8 metres per second in Bogota to 6.3 in Cape Town, and because wind barely tracks temperature, it is worth 3.6 to 6.9 per cent of output relative to still air and decides which hot markets get relief from the heat penalty.
Publication
Production climate
Eighteen measured market-events from grid operators, fleets and peer-reviewed studies quantify smoke's solar yield impact, from 27 per cent off Sydney's rooftops in a single day to 9.5 per cent across the two months of Australia's Black Summer.
Publication
Production climate
The soiling baseline records annual energy loss from 1.5 per cent in rain-washed Berlin to a 20 per cent lower bound in the Gulf, and finds the deciding variable is not how much dust falls but how often rain above a few millimetres follows it. Seventeen markets carry an honest blank where no credible study exists.
Publication
Production climate
The report splits total irradiance into its beam and diffuse components across 40 markets, finding the diffuse share running from 19 per cent on the Atacama plateau to 63 per cent in Reykjavik.
4 entries · no reading written at close
Publication
Production climate
The report joins twenty-one years of NASA and NOAA climate-driver data to show interannual irradiance variability running from 2.5 per cent in deserts to 8 per cent in the monsoon, driven by El Nino and La Nina redistributing cloud across hemispheres.
Publication
Production climate
Two independent NASA instruments record 26 of 40 markets brightening and 14 dimming over two decades, from Berlin's plus 6.8 per cent to Jodhpur's minus 6.1 per cent, agreeing on the direction of change in 29 of the 40.
Publication
Production climate
Panels rated at 25 degrees Celsius run at a modelled 53 degrees in the average market, a static loss of 9.8 per cent of nameplate output before any warming trend is counted. Twenty years of NASA record put the additional 25-year warming penalty at roughly a third of a percentage point.
Publication
Market data
The 2025 data record shows global energy storage additions breaking 100 GW for the first time, battery pack prices at a record low, and Australia's Cheaper Home Batteries Program moving 400,000 systems within a year of launch.
1 entry · no reading written at close
Publication
Technology & safety
The report classifies residential lithium-ion storage by cathode chemistry, a four-layer safety certification stack and battery-management-system generation, rather than by product or brand.