Battery backed rooftop solar
Statement
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt (5:51 pm): Thank you, President. I rise to speak about the report that came out about a week ago by Sustainable Energy Now, which does some great research around renewable energy in our state, called the Western Australian Battery Backed Rooftop Solar Optimisation Study. It is a really exciting bit of research that my office commissioned, and I think it is worth sharing a quick two-minute summary of some of the results of the study. I think these findings are really interesting.
We know that we are a world leader in rooftop solar. I think more than 40% of households have rooftops solar now, but interestingly only 13% of available roof space on houses and commercial and industrial rooftops is utilised—so there is 87% we could add. If we were to fully utilise that roof space, it would add an extraordinary 16 gigawatts of rooftop capacity and, importantly, substantially reduce a couple of key things including large-scale solar. We know there is controversy around large-scale solar taking up valuable farmland and those kinds of things. This is an opportunity to use our rooftops that are already there. Importantly, it would also reduce transmission. This is actually really a key point. The modelling done by Sustainable Energy Now shows that 53% of the high-voltage transmission originally planned under the South West Interconnected System demand assessment would not be required. That would save the state about $14.5 billion, which is pretty extraordinary.
It is a really good report, with some great recommendations. The key is that we do not adjust to just solar; it has to be solar backed with batteries. Just over 4% of properties have rooftop solar with battery storage at the moment, and we have to really ramp that up. New solar has to have batteries as well. Another recommendation was to make sure that the one-third of households that rent benefit from solar and batteries, too. Those of us who have solar know that it reduces our bills, but why should renters and apartment owners not get that advantage as well? People in strata and low-income households often cannot do that as well. How do we make sure they can have access to these things as well?
Of course, the big one is how we put the right incentives in place so that industrial and commercial buildings can put battery-backed rooftop solar panels on their roofs. We need to relax some of the red tape and rules that we have in this state that other states do not have. We limit exports to five kilowatts at the moment. How do we ramp that up and double it so that if a person has a battery, we can get more solar out there?
I will finish by tabling this report. Before I do so, I want to thank the extraordinary volunteers at Sustainable Energy Now who put this together—Fraser, Gus, Richard and Wilf. It is a really great report that shows that energy democratisation will reduce costs for customers and is also the fairest and fastest way that we can decarbonise WA's energy system.
I seek leave to table the SEN report, Western Australia Battery Backed Rooftop Solar Optimisation Study.
Leave granted.
(See paper 464.)
House adjourned at 5:55:47 pm
Questions on notice answered today are available on the Parliament of Western Australia's website
