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One out of every five Australian households are turning to solar energy for their electricity or hot water, new data has reveled.
RenewEconomy in Australia reports that the Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS) shows that 19 per cent of households nationally now currently use either rooftop solar panels or solar powered hot water systems – up from about 5 per cent back in 2011, when the ABS first started publishing statistics on solar.
Of the 19 per cent, 14 per cent of these households have rooftop PV, according to the ABS’s Karen Connaughton.
“Add in solar hot water heating and we’re up to 19 per cent, so one in five households are now using some form of solar power.”
South Australia scored highest for rooftop solar installations, with a huge 24 per cent of households there tapping electricity from the sun.
The ABS’ statistics also found that almost all households in Australia (99.7 per cent) used electricity as a source of energy, while half (50 per cent) used gas.
One in five households used LPG/bottled gas (20 per cent), and 14 per cent of households used another source of energy.
The report also notes that three-quarters of Australian households use some form of cooling, with just under half choosing reverse cycle air conditioning and the remainder mostly split between refrigerated air conditioning and evaporative coolers.
“The hot spot for cooling was the Northern Territory,” said Connaughton, “where 97 per cent of households had some form of cooling.” Tasmania had the least, with only about half of all households having air conditioning.
— This article was first published at RenewEconomy.