For more than a decade, Australia has led the world in residential photovoltaics (PV) uptake, and its industry-reshaping impacts are now emerging as a daily experience according to the latest report by SunWiz.

The report found that 22% of the time when a PV system is installed without a battery, the solar retailer will encounter a pre-existing PV system. This figure is higher again (35%) when installing a battery, on top of the 50% of batteries installed in 2023 that were retrofitted to an existing, unchanged PV system.

PV penetration is at an all-time high, with many systems being repowered because old systems are commonly too small for today’s household electricity requirements.

In the past, PV systems were smaller because they were expensive, and the value of solar exports was much higher than today. Nowadays, PV systems are more efficient and cheaper, and slashing an electricity bill demands a larger system due to lower feed-in tariffs. As a result, people are re-powering older PV systems.

Read the full report on the SunWiz website here.