The Global Solar Council was officially launched at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in France yesterday.
The council is designed to unify the solar power sector and bring together stakeholders from business, politics, and civil society to accelerate the growth of global solar market developments.
“We will ensure rapid and wide-scale adoption of solar energy. Solar is sustainable, solar is clean and solar has arrived. Solar is poised to take a much larger role in solving climate change,” according to John Smirnow, secretary general of the Global Solar Council.
Australian Solar Council CEO John Grimes said Australia is a member of the new global council.
“The creation of the Global Solar Council is a historic and exciting step," he said.
"The council will drive greater collaboration in solar research and greater economies of scale in manufacturing, which will drive down solar costs for Australian consumers."
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said Australia has the highest rate of rooftop solar use of any country in the world, with 1.4 million Australian households using solar to power their homes.
"This has been driven by households investing in solar to reduce their bills, control their energy, and do their bit for the environment," she said.
“Greater coordination by the solar industry world-wide will only be good news for Australian consumers. As solar has been produced at scale the price has plummeted."
McKenzie said the next question for Australia will be utility-scale solar. Countries like China and the US now have large-scale PV plants producing hundreds of megawatts of power.
"Australia is the sunniest country in the world and we have large open land areas. Solar has significant opportunities for Australia," she said.
The energy sector accounts for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy has been a crucial topic at the global climate talks in Paris. The launch comes after other major developments in renewable energy including:
- 1000 mayors and local leaders committed to 100% renewable energy.
- The Prime Minister of India announced a Solar Alliance between over 100 developed and developing countries.
- Bill Gates announced the biggest clean energy investment fund in history, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.
Last week at COP21 was Buildings Day which saw the launch of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.
Eighteen countries (Austria, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Senegal, Singapore, Sweden, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, the US, and over 60 organizations are part of the alliance.
As part of the announcement the World Green Building Council (WGBC) committed to a ‘global market transformation’ to achieve two goals by 2050: net zero carbon for new buildings and the energy efficiency retrofit of existing stock.
Sixteen leading European firms also took the opportunity to deliver their own commitment to drive delivery of ‘nearly zero energy buildings’ (nZEB) for new build by 2020, and refurbished buildings by 2030.
The 'Moving towards net zero buildings' commitment, has been signed by 16 leading organisations representing different sectors of the property sector supply chain, including Acciona, GlaxoSmithKline, Interface, Sky and Tesco.
European Union regulations state that by December 31, 2020 all new buildings must be nZEBs.