2020 IB Extended Essays

Figure 1.2 Australians clean energy

Unlike figure 1.2, figure 1.3 below focuses on household solar and specifically, the number of solar

systems installed each year. While it does not show the quantity pre-subsidy (pre 2009), it can be

established that people were taking advantage of the subsidy due to an increase in installations in

2010 to 2011. While there was a decrease in installations, this can be attributed to announcements

being made about reductions in the subsidies quantity and cutting off the feed in tariff (mentioned

below) and then effectively scaring off consumers due to the increases in prices getting larger and

larger, and slowly becoming unaffordable for the middle class. This is a major downside in regards to

the effectiveness of the subsidy, as it would mean that people would stop buying solar if they could

not afford it. However, due to advancements in technology, the price of solar panels has decreased

by 50% and is expected to continue to decrease dramatically (Digital Eagles, 2020). This ultimately

means that even with a decrease in the subsidy quantity, consumers are still saving extremely large

amount of money. This is due to both the subsidy and advancements in technology allowing solar

panels to become cheaper.

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