It is a "tremendously exciting time" for the solar power industry.
This is according to Nigel Morris, director of SolarBusinessServices, who wrote in an article for his company's website that momentum in the sector is "building like [a] snowball".
Nigel, whose firm helps solar power companies with research and analysis on trends, has been fairly vocal on the subject of renewables recently, including submitting an article to Solar Australia that said installations are on the rise.
And he's not stopping there, with his most recent comments suggesting that the popularity of solar power has been obvious from recent feed-in-tariff schemes in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland.
The initiative in NSW led to 375MW of installations during its ten-month availability, while in Queensland a staggering 350MW worth were ordered in the last 13 days of the scheme alone.
"There is a very strong possibility that by the end of 2012, Australia's installed capacity of solar PV may exceed 2GW – around four per cent of Australia's stationary generation capacity," Nigel explained.
However, he was wary of how the success of solar power may be construed by competitors in the fossil fuels industry.
"The rug could quite easily be pulled from under us," he acknowledged. "It is clear that it's time to become far more bullish."
Posted by Mike Peacock