Rooftops rather than REZs are ticket for Australia’s energy future

After two decades in the industry and more than 2,000 commercial solar systems installed and managed across the country, I can say with confidence: distributed solar and storage will deliver Australia’s energy future faster, cheaper, and more reliably than centralised megaprojects ever will.

Storage = stability

We already know that more storage equals a more reliable grid. That’s a fact. When South Australia went black after a single transmission line fell, who kept the lights on? South Australia’s formerly heralded gas generators certainly didn’t at that time!

The households and businesses with solar and a battery. Today, even mobile towers are being backed up with solar and storage.

Contrast that with what happens when we get it wrong. If renewables outpace storage, we risk blackouts and brownouts. Businesses can’t afford to stop production, so what do they do? They install diesel generators. And every litre of diesel poured into a generator undoes the progress we’ve made. If government and industry want stability, the goal should be crystal clear: accelerate storage at every level of the grid.

Rooftops over remote fields

I have a fundamental disagreement with building more large-scale solar farms. Why? Because Australia has a vast, untapped resource staring us in the face – our rooftops. Fly over Sydney or Melbourne and you’ll see what I mean: acres of empty roof space.

If every suitable roof in Canberra alone had solar, it could power the entire city. Commercial roofs, in particular, remain underutilised real estate. Rooftop solar avoids the transmission losses, cost blowouts, and delays that plague remote solar farms. It strengthens the grid instead of stretching it.

We’re already seeing backlash in the bush. Farmers don’t want giant solar farms eating up their land, and neighbours don’t want new transmission corridors cutting through their towns.

Distributed energy avoids that fight. It keeps power generation close to where it’s needed and out of the paddocks.

We could go on to discuss the issues associated with generating big volumes of power a long way from where it is required, but there are plenty of articles voicing the complaints of solar farm investors who are seeing massive write downs due to the solar and wind farm curtailment.

We already have 35 GW of rooftop solar installed. To reach our national goals, we’ll need closer to 300 GW. That won’t come from faraway fields. It will come from putting panels on every roof and pairing them with batteries. And not just a few big batteries: millions of small ones, distributed everywhere.

Shape matters

The conversation about our energy future can’t just be about generation; it has to be about the ‘shape’ of our load. The ‘duck curve’ is real. The midday solar surge and evening peak won’t balance themselves.

We need smarter use of energy: charging electric vehicles when the sun is shining, running hot water systems in the middle of the day, shifting industrial processes to times when the grid is flush with renewables. Incentivising businesses with cheaper day time tariffs. Without tackling load shape, adding more solar becomes self-defeating. With it, solar and storage could meet 80% or more of Australia’s needs without even factoring in wind and hydro.

Trust and longevity

There’s another barrier to often overlooked: trust. I’ve seen it across the 2,000 solar systems we manage nationwide. The biggest obstacle for customers in taking the plunge with solar isn’t panels, batteries, or even finance – it’s knowing who to trust. Too many solar companies sell a system and disappear. That leaves customers stranded, and rooftops empty. It has been so common in the solar industry we call those systems ‘orphaned.’

The future isn’t about selling hardware. It’s about selling energy over time, backed by a company strong enough to be there in 10- or 20-years’ time. That’s what builds confidence and accelerates uptake.

Where policy should go

Do I dismiss renewable energy zones (REZs) completely? No. They have a role in enabling transmission where it’s badly needed, like moving excess renewables from Queensland to Victoria. But if the lion’s share of policy and subsidies go into centralised projects while rooftops and distributed batteries remain underfunded, we’ll miss the fastest, cheapest, and most resilient path forward.

Australia believes in solar: 40% of homes already have it, and now those homes are adding batteries at an incredible rate, thanks to the government rebate. It’s time to extend that belief to every commercial rooftop, every battery, and every EV charger. Energy security isn’t about the biggest project; it’s about a robust, democratic system where every building contributes.

I know this because I’ve seen it firsthand across more than 2,000 systems we’ve installed and managed nationwide. The future of energy isn’t centralised in a handful of megaprojects. It’s distributed across rooftops and batteries, delivering cleaner, cheaper, more reliable power to Australians everywhere.

Author: Huon Hoogesteger, founder and Managing Director, Smart Commercial Solar

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.

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