South Australia is the driest state in the driest continent. It's the most perfect place for solar power. Australia as-a-whole is a perfect place for solar power.
A university lecturer of mine got one of the first solar panel installations in South Australia, it was mentioned in the local Adelaide paper, that's how much of a big deal it was. This was around 20 years ago. Twenty years!
South Australia (still) has some of the highest priced electricity in the world. There's been talk of privatization as the cause of this, which has been somewhat debunked[0], and the primarily agreed reason for the high prices is what's referred to as "gold-plating of the network" in which there was an agreement that the 'poles and wires' companies could not lose money on any infrastructure investment they committed to - the regulator would allow them continually increase the prices they charge in order to cover the cost of the infrastructure investment[1][2][3].
So, despite how perfect Australia is for solar power, private or commercial, despite the fact that solar panels have been getting commercially installed on private homes for 20-odd years, and despite the networks being given carte-blanche for infrastructure investment, somehow, Australia is un-prepared for a flood of solar power.
The various organizations that are meant to be on top of this shit have been asleep at the wheel for fucking YEARS. This was highlighted by the big power failure in South Australia in 2016 when a number of wind farms shut down due to 'safety settings' being set at overly paranoid parameters, which was a problem that had already been solved in Europe (the frustrating irony of this is that the wind farms were being blamed for the power failure, when the actual situation was that the wind farms could have PREVENTED it, if their configurations were 'best practice' - the problems in the electricity network that caused the wind farms to trip were powerful winds that took down some big-arse transmission lines)[4][5]
Australia's issues with renewable energy are entirely of their own making. And it's far more likely attributable to incompetence than malice. I'd almost prefer it was malice because malice comes and goes. Incompetence is systemic.
Off on a tangent, here's my 10-years of electricity usage / costs investigation: http://electricity.atcf.com.au/economics/
[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/fact-check-does-priva...
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-02/senate-inquiry-to-pro...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-25/grattan-urges-consume...
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-04/energy-policy-solar-e...
[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/wind-farm-settings-to...
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/19/south-au...