Why Solar Is Cheaper in Australia Than America

In Australia, more than a third of all homes have solar panels installed on their roof. Sometime in the next year, rooftop solar is expected to beat out coal to become the country’s largest source of electricity.

No country has been more successful at encouraging rooftop solar adoption than Australia.

There are many differences between America and Australia’s energy policy and markets. But if you want to understand why Australia has installed so much more rooftop solar than America, there’s only one difference that truly matters. That difference is cost.

[craigice]

Haven't paid for power for 13 years. I actually get a yearly check from the power company for about $800. The solar was paid for after five and a half years.

[kerryjlynch]

I hope Rewiring America succeeds. Having worked at three utilities & three consultants where I managed solar interconnections, I can assure you that there is a bias at some places. Tucson & San Diego are models that should be commended for embracing reality. The world will change, but the same people who won't get off their cell phones in a meeting will say unfounded things like "Solar is a waste of money most of the US; the Sun isn't intense enough to justify the cost." Or that it takes 120 days to get a permit even if they don't have any work in their queue. Bitter? Oh yes I am. OTOH, the world changed during my career, and I helped, and I'm proud of that.

[SamuelGarcia-lfsm]

It took us 8 months to get past all the permitting for solar in the US. A massive waste of time

[gasdive]

I used to work in solar permitting in Australia. It is slightly harder than they make out. You need to include a wiring diagram of what you're installing (which can be very basic) and do a voltage rise calculation to show that the voltage won't rise to unacceptable levels when the sun is shining. So it's generally not worth the home owner figuring out how to do it.

However, approval generally took a couple of hours unless it was rejected for leaving out information.

If it was rejected we'd tell you why, you fix it, resubmit and it would be approved.

No inspection required, it's certified by the installers just like any other electrical work.

[JustStopPlayingGames]

Our corporate electric utility company has a hearing in my town tomorrow because they will be raising utility rates while simultaneously scaling back green energy investments.

I need this information for the hearing tomorrow.

[alexishart]

The reason we have so much solar here in Australia is simple. One day, we all got together and agreed that since we're so friggen backward here and that we suck so bad in so many ways that just in this one instance, we wouldn't suck so hard. So we kept exporting massive amounts of coal and increasing our CO2 emissions ever higher, while patting ourselves on the back for the whole solar thing. True story.

[bobbif]

Also, many solar companies are taking massive profits. The range of quotes I got for the exact same size system, with the same parts ranged between $22k and $50k. Get at least 3 to 5 quotes to make sure you aren't being gouged.

[aannddrroommaann]

It's 0.7 $ per watt in India before post installation subsidies and around 0.6 $ after that here in India. Everything from permits to installation to net metering setup happens in under a month. You get your subsidy in your bank account within 60 days after installation.

[JoshKit]

So it's easier to get a gun than a solar panel??

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

One of the tools that we have in order to combat these high costs is Net Metering where solar owners get paid for excess electricity that they pump back into the grid.

Unfortunately, lobbying by corporations is slowly chipping away at this like when California recently changed their net metering rules. The main reason pushed for these changes was so that solar owners would “pay their fair share, ” but simply looking at the cost of operations from the electricity providers annual financial report shows that that means we should have lowered net metering by $0.07/KWh….instead it got lowered by $0.22/KWh!

I’ll be releasing a video in august which goes over this in more detail.

[economistfromhell]

Thank you for explaining how it is to Americans. The only thing standing between Americans and the cheapest electricity in history is the US desire to have extraordinarily ridiculous bureaucracy and then do nothing but complain about it and have childish culture wars. Instead I think everyone can agree that effective regulatory processes are necessary but must be delivered in a sensible manner! C’mon America - get your public spaces organised efficiently. End the Reagan era small govt rubbish - that’s a distraction and wrong headed. It’s better government, not less government. Do I need to say ‘stupid’?

[yane]

in Turkey, on every roof, they use water heaters!

[simolatham]

UK is like Australia, for small systems there's no permit just a short form for the District Network Operator (DNO) and a much longer form for systems over 4Kw. Electricians do the install, testing and commission so your system goes live the second its signed off. No Government or specialist inspector gate keepers.

[PeterTerren]

In Australia, I have 3.5kW of solar cells limited by a feeble feed in cables in a semi-rural setting. I also have a hot water solar system with direct water heating, but this is a least 25yo. There are very few of these being installed now. Rough guess is perhaps less than 1 in 20 homes have direct heating. Presumably solar cells are used for direct water heating. This might work with a 12kW system. We can feed power back to the grid but the benefit is miniscule. The benefit of solar cells to us in Australia is the power you don't have to draw from the grid. Not mentioned in the video was the cost of the inverter to convert the panel's 300V DC to 250VAC with phase in sync to send power back to the grid.

[namouze]

Amazing video Michael, great job. Very informative, and not boring at all!

[stephenbrickwood]

Horse and cart thinking meant horse meat was cheap when the Ford model T rolled of the production line. 😅😅😅

[charmerci]

The large corporate interests want to keep control of the power, literally. American "independence". Yeah, right.

[abedshami]

Check out lebanon's case
I think the increase the last couple of years in solar installations was more than 10000%

[xm_mx]

Governments need to get out of the way of achieving the goals they set. There is so much bureaucracy in the way of progress for the US, it's mind-boggling how it manages to run a functioning government.

[nssimpson]

Nice video. In terms of comparing prices, I'm not keen on "4 times less" or "7 times less". How about "a quarter" or "one seventh"?