Australia manages to install rooftop solar at well under half the cost the USA does (most of that is soft costs) and integrate large amounts of it into the grid.
As of lunchtime today, nearly 50% of all electrical generation on the national grid was rooftop solar (and another ~10% was utility-scale solar).
Rooftop solar works just fine if utilities don’t actively try and obstruct its use.
That's a great achievement, but could be stated in a more clear way.
Not 'As of lunchtime' but 'At precisely lunch time'. An hour later it wasn't 50% anymore, and it won't be 50% except at noon for a long time yet. As of the moment I am posting this, solar is 0% and coal is 80%. If Australia cares about global warming they should build nuclear plants and stop generating 70% of their overall power from coal.
It's still remarkable how much solar is growing and I hope it's 100% 24/7 soon!
Sorry. The point of my post was to respond to the claim that you can't effectively integrate meaningful amounts of rooftop solar into an electricity grid in a cost-effective manner when the evidence from Australia is that you can and we have.
If I'd looked the example when South Australia's interconnector with the rest of the NEM went out, they had periods with the instantaneous penetration of rooftop solar was over 90%. AEMO, the body that manages the Australian electricity grid, are aiming to be able to support a 100% instantaneous renewable mix on the NEM within the next year or two.
As for Australia's overall electricity mix, that is rapidly changing (and the numbers get a bit distorted by the amount of self-consumption of rooftop solar). We're at 40% renewables overall now, and while it may not hit the government's 82% target by 2030 we will almost certainly reach 70% or so by 2030 and I'd think 90% by 2035 is very doable. The last 10% is harder, but there are enough options (gas with CCS, green hydrogen, biofuels, long-term energy storage of other kinds) that I reckon we can get there. We are in the fortunate position of not having solar completely go away for months in the winter.
As for nuclear, it's never, ever going to happen in Australia (despite the claims of the conservative side of Australian politics). Even if Australia could build nuclear power as efficiently as South Korea - an extremely big ask, given we have the same challenges at building large infrastructure as the rest of the English-speaking world - it still doesn't make economic sense.
As of lunchtime today, nearly 50% of all electrical generation on the national grid was rooftop solar (and another ~10% was utility-scale solar).
Rooftop solar works just fine if utilities don’t actively try and obstruct its use.