UNDERSTANDING HOUSEHOLD SOLAR ADOPTION IN AUSTRALIA
Currie GT., Mareels I., Duffield C., Evans R.
The energy system of the future will require customer engagement. However, there is little understanding of how the energy system will incorporate this engagement. Many electricity-planning models make unreasonable assumptions of the willingness of customers to make changes that will optimise the electricity system. This policy analysis on a robust set of Australian household solar adoption data, seeks a statistical measure of policy and price effects on solar adoption. This offers an insightful window into new methods of electricity planning through an improved understanding of household electricity customers. The Australian Government has tracked monthly household solar adoption since 2001. Solar is on 16% of all dwellings in Australia and this creates an opportunity to test the relationship between policy, price, household characteristics, and household solar adoption. Analysis of this data offers an understanding of the key drivers of household solar adoption. This paper reviews our statistical analysis to select variables. The next stage planned for this research is spatial-temporal statistics and system modelling of the Australian energy system.