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Victorian Solar Homes Program – Program Impact Measures (Pilot)

Project Partners: Solar Victoria

C4NET was engaged by Solar Victoria to conduct data analysis that informs the impact of the program.

A randomised sample of Solar Homes rebate recipients were selected, and a detailed analysis of their electricity use conducted. Since it’s launch, the Solar Homes Program has supported more than 130,000 homes install a combined 785MW of solar PV, and over 10 years targets the installation of solar panels, solar hot water or batteries on 770,000 homes across the Victoria.

Any program of such a scale has a massive impact on all electricity consumers, the environment and the network infrastructure.

C4NET, generously supported by its founding core participant, AusNet Services, extracted real operational data from Victoria’s smart meter network for a year prior to solar being installed, and a year after. This demonstrated the value of having high granularity metered data to inform some of the complex issues faced by the industry as it moves through its transition.

The analysis identified that the homes assessed:

  • Reduced their use of electricity from the grid by ~30%
  • Reduced their annual electricity bills by an average of $1073 per household
  • Consumed 27 per cent of the solar they generated, providing 38 per cent of their total household electricity use
  • Each saved an average of two tonnes of CO2-e emissions in one year through self-consumption of solar, and further contributed via exported electricity
  • Exported considerably more electricity to the grid than they consumed from it

Solar Victoria – Victorians getting more bang for their solar buck

Categories: New Technologies, Policy Development

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