The latest update on the Australian PV Institute (APVI) solar map shows that Australia now has 4GW of installed PV.
Installed capacity has quadrupled since 2011, generating an estimated 5250GWh per year from the sun.
In many suburbs, especially in South Australia and Queensland, more than 40 per cent of households have solar panels.
The ‘live’ solar map is hosted by the APVI on its web site and gives half hourly data on PV output across the country.
Meanwhile, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has congratulated researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) for being the first in the world to convert more than 40 per cent of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity.
The record efficiency was first achieved in outdoor tests in Sydney, before being independently confirmed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at their outdoor test facility in the United States.
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said this is another world first for Australian solar researchers, demonstrating the value of investing in Australia’s renewable energy ingenuity.
"Light that is normally wasted by triple junction cells is captured by splitting incoming sunlight into different spectra and directing some of it into a silicon cell," he said.
"This approach has achieved a higher efficiency than what is physically possible with a triple junction cell alone.”
The record-breaking technology was developed through collaboration between UNSW and local company, RayGen Resources.
“Instead of using mirrors to heat a medium like salt, the high tech receiver converts light to electricity directly, like a rooftop solar panel does,” Frischknecht said.
"We hope to see this home grown innovation take the next steps from prototyping to pilot scale demonstrations."
ARENA has contributed $550,000 towards the $1.3 million ‘Power Cube’ project.