







































AUSTRALIAN POPULATION STUDIES  2022 | Volume 6 | Issue 1 | pages 41-44 

 

© Loginova & Dwyer 2022. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence 3.0 Australia (CC 
BY-NC 3.0 AU). Journal website: www.australianpopulationstudies.org 

Demographic indicators and small-
scale solar energy technology 
uptake in Brisbane, Australia:      
an interactive visualisation 

Julia Loginova*  The University of Queensland 

Declan Dwyer  The University of Queensland 

 

* Corresponding author. Email: j.loginova@uq.edu.au.  Address: Centre for Social Responsibility in 

Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute & Queensland Centre for Population Research, School of Earth 

and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia  

Paper received 10 March 2022; accepted 21 April 2022; published 25 July 2022 

 

Introduction 

As interest has increased in global low-carbon energy transitions, so too has interest in how 

population processes such as population ageing or urbanisation affect carbon emissions and 

renewable energy adoption at the local level (Balta-Ozkan et al. 2021; Liddle 2014). Local 

governments and communities around the world are particularly interested to understand the spatial 

disparities in renewable energy adoption and the complexity of demographic and socioeconomic 

factors behind that.  

The City of Brisbane has the potential to be a small-scale solar photovoltaic (SPV) powerhouse in 

Australia. Brisbane has the highest SPV megawatt output potential (NationalMap 2021) and the 

highest solar radiation exposures of all Australian state capitals (Sommerfeld et al. 2017). Increasing 

SPV adoption has the potential to transform collective energy use and directly decrease 

Queensland’s greenhouse gas emissions. Though with more than 800 megawatts of SPV installed (as 

of 2021), there is a high spatial variability of SPV uptake among city neighbourhoods. Researchers 

have begun to evaluate the impact of demographic and socio-economic factors on SPV adoption 

variability across Australia (Lan et al. 2021). Creating interactive and publicly available visualisations 

of such interrelationships is an important step to inform future equitable energy policies and 

planning. Publicly available platforms offer a means to provide access to a wide range of users 

including decision-makers and urban residents. Integration of multiple data sources provides an 

opportunity to reveal new insights that otherwise would remain elusive. Finally, interactive maps 

provide an effective tool for exploring small area data and patterns of relations between indicators. 

The aim of this DemoGraphic is to present an interactive map to visually explore the interplay 

between selected demographic indicators and SPV uptake across postcodes in the Brisbane local 

government area (LGA). 

  

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http://www.australianpopulationstudies.org/
mailto:j.loginova@uq.edu.au


42 Loginova & Dwyer  Australian Population Studies 6 (1) 2022 

 

Data and methods 

A set of key indicators was identified during a review of literature that addresses the impact of 

demographic and socioeconomic factors on the uptake of SPV (Lan et al. 2021; Liddle 2014; 

Sommerfeld et al. 2017). Indicators were selected if they showed a positive relationship with the SPV 

uptake and were broken into two groups. Group I indicators consist of level of education (proportion 

of the population within a postcode which has obtained a tertiary qualification), household income 

(proportion of households within a postcode which meets or exceeds the national average weekly 

household income), median age (years old), and proportion of detached dwellings (proportion of 

total dwellings considered detached dwellings within a postcode) in each postcode. Demographic 

data was sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) at the level of postal areas which are 

ABS’s approximation of postcodes. 

Group II represents SPV adoption (small-scale solar installation totals and total aggregated Kw output 

capacity per postcode) derived from publicly available postcode level data from the Australian 

Government’s Clean Energy Regulator (2021). Only postcodes (n=76) which fall within the Brisbane 

LGA boundary were included.  

The data was incorporated into the interactive map using R software (‘flexdashboard’ and ‘tmap’ 

packages) hosted on the GitHub Pages public repository (see Loginova and Wohland 2020 for 

instructions). The postal areas shapefile was downloaded from the ABS (2021) Australian Statistical 

Geography Standard website. The map can display indicators individually as well as in combination. 

Group I (demographic choropleth maps) and Group II (proportional symbols reflecting SPV adoption) 

indicators can be overlayed to visualise the geographical interplay. The interactive map can be 

explored using this link: https://qcpr.github.io/brisbaneSPV/.   

Key features 

There is a clear spatial pattern to SPV uptake in Brisbane. Postcodes in inner city as well as outer 

suburbs have low SPV uptake, while the highest SPV uptake can be observed in inner suburbs. The 

highest values (above 6,000 small-scale SPV installations and SGU rated output higher than 25,000 

kW) are found in six inner suburbs, with three postcodes on the southside (4109, 4122, 4152) and 

three on the northside (4034, 4017, 4053) of the river (Figure 1). Areas of highest population 

densities (inner city) have some of the lowest SPV uptake.  

Individual indicators showed varying strengths of relationship to SPV uptake. Neither of age, income, 

education, and dwelling indicators demonstrate a clear pattern of SPV uptake. Currently, based on 

the visual representation of the interactive map, Brisbane fits into a theory increasingly recognised in 

the literature which argue that ‘middle’ is best. Areas most conducive to SPV uptake consist of a 

demographic makeup where middle income, middle housing density, and middle age ranges are 

most prevalent (Bondio et al. 2018; Best and Trück 2020; Lan et al. 2021). According to the study by 

Bondio et al. (2018) that surveyed more than 8,000 households in Queensland, SPV adopters are 

more likely to be middle-class households. In the ‘middle’ suburbs, SPV offers the greatest incentives 

with enough flexibility to hurdle some of the practical barriers to SPV such as upfront costs or roof 

space. Practical and socioeconomic barriers to SPV uptake appear to be greatest at the lowest (high 

capital cost barriers) and highest (low appeal beyond the benefits as an electricity cost-saving 

https://qcpr.github.io/brisbaneSPV/


Australian Population Studies 6 (1) 2022  Loginova & Dwyer 43 

 

measure) ends of most demographic indicators (Bondio et al. 2018). Postcodes at neither ends of the 

spectrum, seemingly provide a demographic context whereby the motivations and means of 

adopting SPV result in higher installation totals. Therefore, a more nuanced understanding of specific 

population dynamics and settlement patterns is important for more efficient and equitable policy 

measures and planning that target adoption of the renewable technologies.  

There are a range of limitations associated with this Demographic that require noting. First, it reports 

on four demographic and socioeconomic indicators, recognising that the effect of various population 

and non-population processes is inherently more complex. Inclusion of other indicators, such as 

political preferences or installation costs, would further enrich the understanding of spatial 

disparities in the adoption of renewable technologies. It is also recognised that demographics and a 

specific indicator’s level of influence changes over time (Sommerfeld et al. 2017). The interactive 

map format has the flexibility to keep up with these changes. Regular updates or additions to the 

data can maintain a current representation of the interrelationship between demographics and SPV 

adoption. 

 

 

Figure 1: Geographical interplay between median age and SPV output, kW. 

Source: authors’ dashboard at https://qcpr.github.io/brisbaneSPV/  
 

  

https://qcpr.github.io/brisbaneSPV/


44 Loginova & Dwyer  Australian Population Studies 6 (1) 2022 

 

Acknowledgements 

The authors acknowledge Zero Emissions Brisbane for their valuable guidance and comments on the 

early design of the interactive map. 

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