Market share of residential PV systems in Australia is higher than any countries in the world despite this nation is not a leading solar market on the globe. With its strong demand to small-scale PV systems, Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator found that the installation capacity of small-scale systems has officially exceed 5GW.

Data compiled by Clean Energy Regulator shows that Australia had installed 1.58 million individual small-scale PV systems, and the cumulative installations reached 5.1GW by August 31, 2016. Australia added 72,908 small-scale PV systems from January to August in 2016.

Queensland added 18,884 small-scale systems during the first eight months of 2016, topping the country. New South Wales followed Queensland with 15,639 and Victoria followed with 14,912.

The same data shows that the small-scale installations in 2015 decreased from 360,745 in 2011, the peak year, to 141,075. The annual installation in 2016 would also drop depending on the installation number from January to August.

In contrast, a total of 12 projects were awarded funding in Australia’s breakthrough utility-scale solar funding round, with AU$91 million set aside for 482MW of capacity, reported PV Tech.