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The suburbs least and most likely to be green

New data indicates that Australia’s wealthiest suburbs are least likely to be eco-friendly and take up solar panels.

solar panels installing

The analysis, collated by comparison website finder.com.au, shows postcodes where households with very high incomes have not taken up solar power.

For household incomes under $75,000, 45 per cent of houses have solar panels, while when looking at over household incomes over $100,000, the percentage drops off to 35 per cent.

Looking at key suburbs, 7 per cent of households in Richmond, Victoria — with an average household income of $124,722 and a median house price of $1,272,500 — and 6 per cent of homes in Cammeray, Sydney — with an average household income of $149,655 and a median house price of $2,295,000 — have solar panels.

Graham Cooke, energy expert at finder.com.au, said he was disappointed that wealthier suburbs are not utilising solar power.

“The upfront cost of installing solar requires at least 40 per cent of the income of those households who are actually taking the plunge, which shows they’re much more conscious when it comes to energy spend,” Mr Cooke said.

“The research suggests that higher earning households are happy to fork out for expensive energy bills without considering how much they can save by investing in solar.”

“Over the last few years, there have been many changes to solar. It’s likely that a lot of these lower income households installed solar when it was subsidised and available at a discount”

Meanwhile, the top 10 postcodes with the biggest suburbs with high solar panel adoption rates are:

 Rank

Postcode

Suburb

State

Percentage of homes with solar panels

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1

4516

Elimbah

QLD

66%

2

5117

Angle Vale

SA

60%

3

4270

Tamborine

QLD

55%

4

4280

Jimboomba

QLD

55%

5

4512

Wamuran

QLD

53%

6

4520

Samford

QLD

53%

7

5172

Willunga

SA

52%

8

5171

McLaren Vale

SA

52%

9

2899

Norfolk Island

NSW

51%

10

4561

Yandina

QLD

51%

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