Energy September 2026

ISSUE 34 · September 2026 · www.energymagazine.com.au

PRECISION

from above Satellite technology transforms solar farm management

WHERE THE WORK IS Introducing Project Watch

ALL ENERGY 2026

The renewable energy mecca returns

SEPTEMBER 2026

Published by

Chairman John Murphy Chief Executive Officer Christine Clancy Publisher Sarah Baker Managing Editor Eugene Duffy Editor Tom Parker Art Director Alejandro Molano Designer Danielle Harris National Media Executive Michael Ingram-Casha P: 0423 266 991 michael.ingram@primecreative.com.au Client Success Manager Cait Pillay Head Office Prime Creative Pty Ltd 379 Docklands Drive Docklands VIC 3008 Australia P: (03) 9690 8766 info@primecreative.com.au www.primecreativemedia.com.au

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Editor’s welcome

I

f you’re reading this article, you may have come across this magazine at All Energy Australia – the largest event of its kind in the Asia Pacific.

Thousands of copies have been distributed throughout the event, not only detailing all the happenings at All Energy but also showcasing some of the pioneering technologies and projects underpinning the energy transition more broadly.

On the cover, we take readers to ACEN Australia’s New England Solar site, where first-of-its-kind research is redefining how solar sites are monitored and visualised.

A collaboration with CSIRO and Macquarie University is using satellite‑based remote sensing and artificial intelligence to bring new precision to vegetation management, fire preparedness and day‑to‑day operations.

Nona Sepahrom, a CSIRO Industry PhD student from Macquarie University, has been tasked with the project.

This edition also features the first instalment of Project Watch – a new quarterly column highlighting the notable projects energy professionals should be across. We spotlight developments from the likes of Transgrid, TasNetworks, Horizon Power, AusNet and Endeavour Energy.

From surging home battery adoption to growing data-centre loads and the untapped capacity of distribution networks, there was plenty to be gained from the Australian Energy Market Operator’s biannual Integrated System Plan (ISP).

We took a deep dive to uncover 10 key trends from the report.

Elsewhere, CivEng Consulting sheds light on five civil engineering lessons learned from decades in the field.

Critical details are being missed, CivEng believes, which is slowing construction timelines and placing Australia’s energy transition at risk.

SA Power Networks takes the spotlight with its unique network relocation project for the Hillside mine, where assets have had to be removed from the mine footprint. Power Line Systems software from Bentley Systems has helped unlock this development.

Decon Corporation and NHP discuss how their switchboards and technology solutions, respectively, are supporting Australia’s data-centre infrastructure rush.

Decon's RG Ladd division keeps sheet metal fabrication, powder coating, switchboard assembly and testing in-house, maintaining control over the manufacturing process.

Rounding out this edition, we shine a light on how Sigenergy became Australia’s number one home battery brand in under a year and take to the Pilbara to see how ABB helped a major mining company install a 50MW BESS in the extreme heat.

Happy reading.

Tom Parker Editor

If you have a story idea, tip or feedback regarding Energy, I’d love to hear it.

Drop me a line at tom.parker@primecreative.com.au, and don’t forget to follow us on social media – find us on LinkedIn, X or Facebook.

Energy acknowledges Aboriginal Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and pays respect to their cultures and Elders past and present.

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Contents COVER STORY 11

Smarter solar farms

CSIRO and Macquarie University are helping ACEN Australia balance fire risk, grazing needs and insurance demands at New England Solar.

FUTURE GRID 14

Shifting the grid

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Bentley Systems helped SA Power Networks cut rework and save 100 work hours relocating infrastructure for the Hillside mine.

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An electrical pioneer

Australian Power Equipment is powering Australia’s energy transition with reliable, end-to-end electrical infrastructure.

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Common ground

As Marinus Link finalises land access agreements, its leaders explain how proactive engagement is building community trust.

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Powering the Pilbara

In just two weeks, ABB commissioned a grid-forming power conversion system for a 50MW battery energy storage system in the Pilbara.

INTEGRATED SYSTEM PLAN 34

Ten takeaways from the 2026 ISP

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The 2026 Integrated System Plan delivered a wealth of insights into the current and future state of Australia’s energy market.

DATA CENTRES 39

Keeping data centres running

Decon Corporation is powering Australia’s booming data-centre industry with locally made switchboards.

INDUSTRY EVENTS 42

A renewable energy adventure

With nearly 500 exhibitors and new data-centre content, All Energy Australia 2026 reflects a rapidly evolving energy sector.

44

Introducing the Utility Awards

The 2026 Utility Awards will celebrate the people, projects and organisations driving excellence across Australia’s essential services sector.

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS 52

The distribution dividend

Once overlooked, distribution networks are emerging as a faster, lower-cost lever to achieving Australia’s energy transition targets.

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Energy Magazine

42 REGULARS 3

Welcome from the Editor

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Project Watch

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Industry movements

Directors Andrew Cockbain and Abby Crawford

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PROJECT WATCH

Where the work is

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Project Watch highlights six projects shaping Australia’s renewable energy future, from transmission and storage to network reliability.

ustralia’s grid infrastructure boom is in full swing as authorities balance the installation of new generation assets with the need to modernise an ageing energy system.

According to AEMO’s recent Quarterly Energy Dynamics report, the capacity of generation and storage projects in the National Electricity Market pipeline climbed 42 per cent in the year to June 30, from 53 gigawatts (GW) to 75.4GW.

A record 6.9GW of new generation and storage connection applications were approved in the June quarter, while 3.9GW of assets were fully commissioned.

As Australia targets 82 per cent renewable energy generation by 2030, the need to transition pipeline projects through approvals and into construction has never been more important. Same goes for the delivery

HumeLink, NSW Transgrid’s nation-critical HumeLink project, a 365km transmission line connecting Snowy 2.0 and wind and solar generators to the grid, will unlock an abundance of new renewable energy for NSW consumers.

Construction has reached peak activity across both sections, including tower erection, conductor stringing and major works on new and upgraded substations.

On HumeLink West, aerial stringing of conductors is underway across more than 360 new towers between Wagga Wagga and Maragle, with the first cables installed on towers leading into Wagga Wagga substation. On HumeLink East, helicopter stringing continues between Tumut and Bannaby, where more than 210km of access tracks and over 335 tower pads are now complete.

The project is expected to be completed late next year.

Completed HumeLink East towers near Adjungbilly Image: Transgrid

of associated grid projects such as transmission lines and distributionlevel developments.

This has inspired the creation of Project Watch – a quarterly column highlighting the notable projects energy professionals should be across.

In the first instalment, Energy outlines six projects in varying stages of development.

Western Renewables Link, Victoria

A 409kW solar array and 2.8MWh BESS are being installed in Menzies, WA. Image: Horizon Power

Menzies hybrid energy system, Western Australia The remote town of Menzies in Western Australia’s Goldfields region is set to receive a significant renewable energy upgrade, with a new hybrid energy system expected to deliver up to 80 per cent renewable energy for the local community.

The project, delivered by Horizon Power in partnership with Pacific Energy, will combine 409 kilowatts of solar generation and 2.8 megawatt-hours of battery energy storage to significantly reduce diesel consumption and cut carbon emissions by up to 500 tonnes each year.

Construction is expected to commence later this year, with completion targeted for mid-2027.

The Western Renewables Link is a proposed 190km 500-kilovolt overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line that will carry renewable energy from near Bulgana in western Victoria to Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west.

Delivered by AusNet, the project is critical to unlocking the renewable energy potential of western Victoria and connecting wind and solar energy generators to the grid.

Western Renewables Link is expected to generate up to 700 full-time construction jobs, with more than 1000 indirect jobs to be created throughout the project.

As of early August, the project was awaiting the Victorian Minister for Planning’s assessment of its Environment Effects Statement. If the project proceeds, construction is due to begin early next year, with completion in 2029.

Western Renewables Link will be key in unlocking Victoria’s renewable energy potential. Image: AusNet

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PROJECT WATCH

Wooreen energy storage system, Victoria

The Wooreen energy storage system will feature 1038 batteries.

Image: EnergyAustralia

EnergyAustralia, in partnership with BANPU Energy Australia, is building the 350-megawatt Wooreen energy storage system at Hazelwood North, on a site next to EnergyAustralia’s existing Jeeralang gas-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley.

Once operating, the four-hour battery will be able to supply up to 230,000 households at times of peak demand, storing energy when it’s abundant and releasing it when it’s needed most. This will help keep the power supply steady as more wind and solar power comes online.

Sixteen months into construction, 840 of the project’s 1038 batteries have been delivered to site, with around 150 workers from the region building Wooreen.

Construction began in early 2025, with commercial operation targeted for 2027.

EnergyAustralia signed an agreement with BANPU Energy Australia during 2025 for the sale of a 50 per cent equity interest in the Wooreen energy storage system.

Tasman Peninsula reliability upgrade, Tasmania TasNetworks crews have begun a major reliability upgrade on the Tasman Peninsula in south-east Tasmania, with works expected to continue through to early 2027.

The project will see switching sites upgraded with increased automation to improve network reliability in late 2026, alongside the installation of new poles and conductor sections early next year.

These upgrades will improve reliability and resilience on the Peninsula, with upgraded switching supporting faster fault response by TasNetworks crews.

Increased automation will give crews greater visibility and control of the network, helping them manage interruptions more efficiently.

The upgrade forms part of a sustained investment in Tasmania’s electricity network, with TasNetworks investing an average of $275 million each year over the past few years.

This work is strengthening the network today while building its resilience for the future.

The new Western Sydney Airport substation.

Image: Endeavour Energy

TasNetworks is carrying out a multitude of grid projects.

Image: TasNetworks

Western Sydney Airport substation, NSW Endeavour Energy is building the electricity backbone for the Western Sydney Aerotropolis through a $320 million investment program supporting one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions.

A major milestone was reached in July with the commissioning of the new Western Sydney Airport substation, a $33 million project that will provide critical electricity capacity for Western Sydney International Airport, Bradfield City, new homes, businesses and industrial precincts.

The substation will improve network reliability and resilience while supporting jobs, housing and economic growth. It also forms part of a broader program of network investments planned to support the Aerotropolis’ continued growth and development.

The Western Sydney Aerotropolis is an 11,200-hectare economic and employment hub centred around the new Western Sydney Airport in Badgerys Creek.

Do you have any projects to promote?

Contact tom.parker@primecreative.com.au to share your stories.

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Energy Magazine

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COVER STORY Pioneering research is taking place at ACEN Australia’s New England Solar site in NSW. Image: ACEN Australia

Smarter solar farms

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CSIRO and Macquarie University are helping ACEN Australia balance fire risk, grazing needs and insurance demands at New England Solar.

or insurers and operators alike, what grows under a solar array is almost as important as what sits on top of it. Grass height, moisture and biomass all influence how a site is insured, maintained and grazed.

At ACEN Australia’s New England Solar site in New South Wales, a collaboration with CSIRO and Macquarie University is using satellite‑based remote sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) to bring new precision to vegetation management, fire preparedness and day‑to‑day operations.

As CSIRO senior photovoltaic scientist Kenrick Anderson explained, today’s solar farms must constantly balance two competing demands.

“On one hand, you have solar farms wanting to keep grass levels down to reduce fire risk and keep insurers happy,” he told Energy. “On the other hand, the farmer, which is leasing the land to the solar operator, prefers higher grass levels for grazing purposes.”

Higher grass levels are also preferred by farmers to mitigate the ingestion risk

of barber’s pole worm – a fatal, bloodsucking parasite common in Queensland and the northern half of NSW. “Industries are trying to find a ‘happy medium’ in grass length: short enough for insurers and fire services, long enough for graziers’ livestock health and productivity – all in a climate where droughts and extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent and severe,” Anderson said.

A smarter view

Until now, grass conditions have largely been determined through manual processes.

“We’ve worked with technicians who’ll drive by a site and go ‘1, 2, 3, 4’ to describe the grass length, with ‘1’ being the lowest and ‘4’ being the highest,” CSIRO principal research scientist Dr Cindy Ong told Energy.

“This provides limited insight, is subjective and introduces the chance for human error.”

Manual assessments are also time-consuming.

“A solar farm like ACEN’s spans 2000 hectares,” Anderson said. “To traverse the site and inspect everything is extremely labour intensive – a technician could cover hundreds of kilometres in the space of a few days.

“We’re hoping this research will unlock a new quantitative, repeatable system using satellites, airborne data, and field measurements to map vegetation fire risk across the entire site – and update it regularly.”

Nona Sepahrom, a CSIRO Industry PhD student from Macquarie University, has been tasked with the project. She is using hyperspectral imagery from Germany’s EnMAP satellite to measure vegetation down to a biochemical element.

“For utility-scale solar operators, biochemical detail translates to something practical: the ability to distinguish green, moist biomass from dry, flammable fuel, and see how that fuel is distributed around high‑value assets such as transformers and cabling,” Dr Ong said. www.energymagazine.com.au

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COVER STORY

“This is how we determine fire risk in a quantitative form. It can also help farmers better manage their grazing patterns and work collaboratively with the solar farm operator to balance both the fire risk and yield of a farm.”

Using field samples and satellite imagery, Sepahrom is building a larger, more crystallised picture of ACEN’s New England Solar site.

“Once I’ve rationalised lab and satellite information, I will use specific spectral features learnt from the lab and satellite to classify the solar farm into distinct vegetation characteristics,” Sepahrom told Energy.

“I will compare this information across seasons, see how vegetation changes, and determine which parts of the farm are becoming drier and increasing the bushfire risk.

“Understanding historical and concurrent weather data is also important as precipitation, temperature, wind and sun exposure have a direct impact on vegetation growth. This is another source of information for the AI model.”

These insights will inform maps and models that illustrate vegetation condition, biomass, moisture and a fire‑risk score for each part of the solar farm, tracked across seasons and years.

This will help determine which parts of the farm are more prone to bushfire, and which sections need grazing or slashing intervention.

Scaling the solution

In the longer term, Anderson sees these models becoming part of a solar farm operator’s control room toolkit.

“The hope is for solar farm operators to be able to visualise their site and vegetation in real time,” he said. “A software platform could illustrate the fire risk at any point in time,

The research aims to help build confidence in agrivoltaics as a viable land management approach. Image: ACEN Australia

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Energy Magazine

Satellite-based remote sensing and AI are being used to quantify vegetation fire risk across thousands of hectares. Image: CSIRO

enabling operators to make educated decisions on-site.

“By accruing more data, we could then build predictive models. This would help farmers optimise grazing patterns or slash a field in preparation for dry or wet weather coming.”

While the current work is centred on ACEN Australia’s New England Solar site, the underlying challenge – balancing vegetation, fire risk and co‑grazing on large renewable sites – is an industry‑wide issue.

“I’ve talked to plenty of solar farm operators – this challenge is on everyone’s mind,” Anderson said. “This solution could be rolled out across other utility‑scale solar and wind farms, supporting both operators and graziers.”

This solution is part of CSIRO’s broader solar work, which aims to increase the efficiency of solar farms while decreasing cost and risk.

ACEN Australia managing director David Pollington believes this project can set an important example for the wider Australian renewable energy industry.

“Through this research, we aim to help build industry confidence in agrivoltaics and livestock grazing as a viable long-term land management

approach … and demonstrate how grazing operations can be maintained or even enhanced alongside solar generation,” he said.

“The project also highlights the value of working closely with host landholders and investing in research that delivers tangible benefits for farming businesses.

“Ultimately, it demonstrates that renewable energy projects can be partners in rural land stewardship, creating shared value for landholders, communities and the clean energy sector.”

For Sepahrom, remote sensing is as much a mindset shift as a technical tool.

“It gives me the feeling that I am a bird flying across the solar farm,” she said. “I can visualise everything from one viewpoint instead of traversing the site to gather my insights. It makes everything easier.”

In a world of hotter summers and tighter margins, that bird’s‑eye view may soon be indispensable for keeping operators, farmers and insurers happy.

Learn more about CSIRO’s energy research at csiro.au/energy

FUTURE GRID

SA Power Networks’ network comprises about 400 zone substations, 647,000 Stobie poles and 88,000 kilometres of powerlines. Image: SA Power Networks

Shifting the grid

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Bentley Systems helped SA Power Networks cut rework and save 100 work hours relocating infrastructure for the Hillside mine.

entley Systems is globally recognised for its ability to develop bespoke software for contractors, engineers and owneroperators working at the coal face of infrastructure projects.

The software pioneer has inspired many transmission and distribution projects in Australia, with the lion’s share of developers using the Power Line Systems (PLS) product suite to deliver accurate, compliant, and cost-effective powerline designs.

For SA Power Networks, PLS-CADD – an end-to-end engineering design and drafting tool for overhead power lines – has been indispensable to its commitment to delivering safe and reliable power for 1.7 million people in South Australia.

“PLS-CADD usage is, if anything, growing in the organisation,” SA Power Networks CAD specialist Leigh Menzel told Energy.

“We’re using it extensively to support new solar farms and wind farms in

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Energy Magazine

remote locations, battery energy storage systems (BESS) near those sites, and new data centres co-located where there’s plenty of power, land, and water.

“We’re using PLS-CADD for the design work to connect all of these assets.”

PLS-CADD has proven effective for the Hillside network relocation project.

One project where PLS-CADD has proven particularly effective is at the Hillside copper-gold project, which called on SA Power Networks to carry out a network relocation to support its proposed mining operations.

The project team was tasked with selecting a new road alignment,

FUTURE GRID

designing new overhead line configurations, and ensuring all assets met clearance, safety, and regulatory requirements.

By moving network assets out of the mine footprint, the goal was to minimise disruption to customers, reduce construction risk, and deliver a future-ready network configuration.

The design of the network relocation was interfaced in PLS-CADD. “PLS-CADD was an obvious choice for this project,” Menzel said. “It offers a full suite of capabilities across the powerline design envelope.

“We used Bentley’s PLS-CADD as a single platform for line modelling and reporting. It helped confirm pole strength and strain capabilities, model the catenary sag of conductors, and check line clearances and compliance.

“We’ve used PLS-CADD for a long time for these types of overhead line design tasks, so continuing to use it on this project was a no‑brainer.”

Menzel said PLS-CADD meets all of SA Power Networks’ desired design requirements.

“Over the years, PLS-CADD has proven to be the best solution for what we do,” he said. “While there are many tools that do individual aspects like PLS-CADD, having a single product that covers the breadth of our needs is important.

“It’s also cost-effective and easy to support from an IT perspective: one product doing many things, rather than 15 products doing different things and may not integrate nicely.”

The vision was already set

SA Power Networks was given a headstart on the Hillside network relocation project, with the mine owner already creating its own digital terrain model (DTM) of the site.

This is distinct from other SA Power Networks projects.

“We would normally send a survey team out to measure site conditions such as road levels, terrain, etc., and we’d then estimate where everything would be once the civil works were done and design around that,” Menzel said. “Inevitably, there are changes or our best guesses turn out to be slightly wrong, and we would then have to move things around.

“What was different on this occasion, and something we’d like to see more of, is that the mine owner had already developed a digital terrain model.”

SA Power Networks uses PLS-CADD as a single platform for line modelling and reporting.

The DTM allowed SA Power Networks to design, to relatively accuracy, the expected reduced levels (RLs) of the finished civil design rather than guessing.

“That was the exciting part for us,” Menzel said. “We could model everything in 3D, show where the assets would go, check clearances, and confirm compliance.

“Having this data upfront was worth its weight in gold.”

By using the pre-established DTM, the network could be designed against the mine’s future. This provided early confidence on clearance and constructability, cut rework, and saved an estimated 100 work hours against the project’s 1400 total hours.

Bentley’s broader capability

PLS-CADD forms a central cog of Bentley Systems’ Power Line Systems portfolio, which also comprises PLS-GRID, PLS-POLE, TOWER, SAPS and CAISSON. As Bentley Systems senior regional director – Australia and New Zealand Vivek Kumar explained, the greatest benefits are realised when PLS is paired with Bentley’s broader product suite, such as MicroStation, iTwin and Bentley Infrastructure Cloud.

“Through our iTwin platform, users can export an infrastructure digital twin,” he told Energy.

“This pulls together insights and designs from adjacent platforms, such as PLS for powerline design, MicroStation for designing other assets and Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, to create shared iTwin models across different parts of the supply chain.

“These models can engage with one another to create an end-to-end vision of an operation.”

From initial design to construction, commissioning and operations, Bentley helps end users right across the project workflow.

This is particularly important when rationalising past, present and future data.

“End users want to be able to take data from the initial design stage to operations and maintenance without losing asset attributes and tags,” Kumar said.

“Together, PLS, MicroStation and Bentley Infrastructure Cloud can provide an AI‑ready schema for you down the track, so when design and construction is complete, end users can access the same asset data that was there from the original design.

“This makes it easy to search contextual information based on existing metadata, which is essential to the organisation of a project.”

Kumar said PLS is used to support 80–90 per cent of distribution and transmission design in Australia’s electricity sector.

As Bentley expands its Australian footprint further, it’s seeking to influence the supply chain early.

“We’re engaging with the market, holding events and information sessions, with the goal of saying, ‘If you use our software, and this is how you mandate it in your tenders, for example, you can achieve a much better outcome across your project lifecycle’,” Kumar said.

“We’re actively working with the lion’s share of transmission and distribution projects across Australia, so I’d say this strategy is starting to pay off.” www.energymagazine.com.au

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FUTURE GRID

An electrical pioneer

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Australian Power Equipment is powering Australia’s energy transition with reliable, end-to-end electrical infrastructure.

ustralia’s energy sector is experiencing a perfect storm of change.

As utilities modernise ageing networks, renewable generation accelerates and industrial electrification gathers pace, the demand for dependable electrical infrastructure has never been greater.

Success is no longer determined by individual pieces of equipment alone, but by integrated power systems that deliver reliability, efficiency and long-term performance.

For Australian Power Equipment, this philosophy underpins every project.

From transformers and switchgear through to power quality solutions, specialist cabling and substations, the company delivers end-to-end electrical infrastructure designed to perform as one – whether manufactured new to specification or expertly refurbished to extend asset life and reduce project lead times.

“Good engineering begins with understanding how every component performs as part of the wider electrical system,” Australian Power Equipment director Andrew Cockbain told Energy.

“We work closely with our clients to deliver integrated solutions that are technically robust, reliable in operation and built to meet the long-term demands of Australia’s energy sector.”

transformer solutions across utility, industrial, transport and renewable energy applications.

Recent projects have seen the company supply an earthing transformer for a hydrogen facility, supporting safe system grounding within an emerging clean energy development, while transformer solutions have also been delivered for Melbourne’s tram network, where reliability is essential to keeping critical public transport operations online.

Complementing these installations are power factor correction systems that improve network efficiency, reduce reactive power demand and assist with voltage stabilisation.

Medium-voltage switchgear, ring main units and associated protection equipment ensure safe, reliable distribution throughout the network, while specialist medium and high-voltage cabling completes the electrical system, providing dependable performance in some of Australia’s most demanding operating environments.

“Our customers aren’t simply buying equipment – they’re looking for solutions they can rely on,” Australian Power Equipment director Abby Crawford told Energy.

“Whether we’re supporting a renewable energy project, upgrading critical infrastructure or responding to

an urgent operational requirement, our role is to bring together the right technology, trusted manufacturing partners and sustainable thinking to deliver practical outcomes.”

New lease on life

While many suppliers focus exclusively on new equipment, Australian Power Equipment complements new builds with refurbished electrical assets that deliver sustained performance long into the future.

Every refurbished asset undergoes comprehensive inspection, testing and quality assurance before entering service, providing customers with a practical alternative that reduces lead times, lowers project costs and supports circular economy principles.

This allows customers to choose the solution that best suits their technical requirements, project schedules and sustainability objectives.

As Australia’s energy transition accelerates, the industry’s greatest opportunities will come through partnerships built on technical expertise, responsiveness and trust.

Australian Power Equipment ticks all three boxes, providing the electrical foundations utilities, renewable energy developers and industrial operators require to readily deliver their projects and enjoy sustained performance well into the future.

Integrated electrical infrastructure

The success of an electrical network hinges on components working seamlessly together, with downtime and costly maintenance the ramifications of a disconnected system.

Australian Power Equipment supplies complete electrical infrastructure, bringing together transformers, switchgear, power quality equipment and specialist cabling into integrated solutions tailored to each application.

Whether it’s power transformers, distribution transformers, cast resin kiosk transformers and earthing transformers, Australian Power Equipment offers a full suite of

Australian Power Equipment directors Andrew Cockbain (left) and Abby Crawford (right).

Image: Australian Power Equipment’

www.energymagazine.com.au

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FUTURE GRID

Autodesk has overseen digital transformations right across the world, including many in the energy industry.

Mind over megawatts ustralia’s energy transition is becoming increasingly granular, as renewable technologies rewrite how our electricity system works and operates.

No longer can utilities rely on manual, paper-based processes to monitor their assets, with the integration of rooftop solar, battery storage, power inverters, smart meters and sensors changing the way networks capture, monitor and distribute data.

Millions upon millions of distributed assets must be synchronised, with mandates coming in at both state and federal levels to ensure Australia’s next wave of infrastructure has the digital smarts to go with it.

NSW’s Infrastructure Digitalisation and Data Policy is requiring data consistency across all major infrastructure projects, while the Federal Government’s Data and Digital Government Strategy is embedding world-class data and digital capabilities into public services through to 2030.

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Energy Magazine

(DE) teams to bring their organisation up to speed with technology,” Autodesk account technical lead Magnolia Garcia told Energy.

“This is a good sign: they recognise something’s missing, and they’re committed to fixing it.”

Starting small

Autodesk account technical lead Magnolia Garcia.

It takes digital twins to deliver sustained operational success, something Autodesk understands well.

Having overseen digital transformations right across the world, Autodesk sees the potential of Australia’s energy sector – largely seen as a digital laggard to this point.

“While some Australian utilities still use paper-based systems, many are integrating internal digital engineering

As Autodesk nurtures its energy customers into digitalising their operations, the first goal is to be “opportunistic in your approach”.

“Most utilities don’t need to digitalise everything at once,” Garcia said. “The biggest opportunities are often in new projects, where the foundations for a digital twin already exist.

“Many utilities already have detailed design models, whether that’s BIM (building information modelling) in 3D or CAD (computeraided design) in a traditional 2D environment.

“The challenge is that these models are typically created by consultants to deliver the project, then archived once construction is complete. Instead of

Images: Autodesk

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Digital twins are transforming static asset data into real-time operational intelligence to support Australia’s evolving energy system.

FUTURE GRID

becoming operational assets, they sit unused on a server.”

This is where Autodesk can step in, creating a common data environment (CDE) to help centralise project files, forming the foundation for digital twins – the next stage of intelligence.

“Only when files are centralised can you make sense of them and make the most of them,” Garcia said. “And only then can you start adding layers like digital twins, AI, and so on.”

From clean data to software intelligence, digital twins – which are platformed end-to-end in Autodesk software – help utilities predict, simulate, and act. This helps reduce downtime, extend asset life, and make ESG (environmental, social and governance) compliance measurable in daily operations.

The maturity curve starts with gaining real-time operational visibility, such as grid load at a point in time. This enables operators to anticipate issues before they occur, such as an ageing transformer that is soon to fail, and plan preventive maintenance accordingly.

Autonomous operations – which are increasingly being adopted in mining and resources industries – are the next step in digital-twin capability, allowing systems to recommend or even trigger actions, such as rerouting power to maintain service continuity.

“This maturity curve transforms data from a static resource into a strategic enabler of operational excellence, financial resilience, and sustainability,” Autodesk said in a recent eBook, “giving executives both the confidence and the evidence to make better decisions across the lifecycle.”

As Garcia explained, the bestplaced utilities are those who consider the holistic advantages of a digital transformation.

“Organisations sometimes forget that while the design and delivery phase of a project might take five years, they could be operating that asset for the next 80–100 years,” she said.

“Setting your assets up with a digital twin from the start provides the greatest chance of success. As you generate more data across the life of the project, the smarter the system gets and the more actionable insights you have to work with.

“You can refine your preventive maintenance strategy down to each asset, provide greater ESG transparency to stakeholders, and feel empowered about improving your operation over time.”

Digital twins in action

For utilities, where demand volatility and legacy infrastructure are

the norm, digital twins predict outages, model grid behaviour in real time, and integrate distributed resources such as EVs, microgrids and batteries. This boosts operational resilience and service reliability, improving customer satisfaction as a result.

Renewable energy operators can use digital twins to help manage geographically dispersed assets with variable generation profiles, forecasting yields, predicting failures in turbines or solar arrays, and optimising integration into the grid. This increases output, while operations and maintenance (O&M) costs are kept to a minimum.

The more decentralised and dynamic Australia’s energy system becomes, the more indispensable a living digital twin can be.

What begins as a digital replica ultimately becomes the intelligence layer to help utilities navigate an increasingly unpredictable energy landscape.

And keeping a grid stable when coal-fired generation has ceased and utilities must call on everything from wind to solar, batteries, pumped hydro and gas to support the grid? For digital twins, this is a piece of cake.

In an increasingly decentralised energy system, utilities can no longer rely on manual processes to monitor their assets.

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Common ground As Marinus Link finalises land access agreements, its leaders explain how proactive engagement is building community trust.

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hen the latest iteration of the Integrated System Plan (ISP) was released in late-June, it graded the most important transmission projects needed to meet net-zero targets.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) placed projects into three categories: committed, anticipated and actionable.

Committed projects are those that are already underway, including Stage 2 of EnergyConnect, HumeLink and network infrastructure for the Hunter–Central Coast and Central– West Orana renewable energy zones (REZs).

Anticipated are those at the latter stages of their planning timeline, including Western Renewables Link, CopperString, Stage 1 of Project Marinus, and network infrastructure for the New England REZ.

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To get a transmission project to this point takes years of community engagement and commercial nurturing, with the interests of affected landholders just as important as the financing that will fund the project’s development.

One half of Project Marinus is Marinus Link – a 345km interconnector first conceived in 2017 to build on the 500-megawatt (MW) Basslink.

After proving its technical and economic viability, a final investment decision was made on the 750MW stage one of Marinus Link in August 2025, with early works commencing on the project this year.

Marinus Link still needs to navigate a few hoops before it enters major construction, but it has been endorsed by its owners, the Federal, Victorian and Tasmanian Governments, while the project reached financial close in

September 2025 following a record investment by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

One of the final steps for Marinus Link is to establish land access agreements with local farmers and landholders, such as voluntary easement and lease option deeds.

This includes 95 landholders who are directly affected by the cable installation spanning Hazelwood to Waratah Bay in Victoria, as well as three First Peoples groups whose Country is impacted.

Marinus Link has worked closely with Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, and Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council through this phase, while about half of the 95 landholders have reached agreements to provide access to their land during construction.

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Marinus Link is establishing land access agreements with 95 landholders directly affected by the cable installation.

Images: Joel Strickland

Some landholders have been comfortable with the offer and have signed, others have their agreements sitting with legal representation, while some have commissioned their own valuations, which can be compared with Marinus Link’s.

Marinus Link has also provided a small sum to each landholder, under a land access agreement, for the company to access their property and complete pre-construction survey work, including geotechnical investigations, cultural heritage assessments, and flora and fauna surveys.

Once an easement and lease option deed is finalised, the landholder is paid $10,000 for signing it, and if they pay within a specific period, they receive an additional $10,000. There is also $10,000 available for professional services, supporting landholders who choose to obtain their own valuation and receive legal representation to review the contract before signing.

“We’ve kept those amounts standardised across all agreements – we haven’t increased or decreased them based on how the relationship is tracking,” Lindsay said. “For the most part, landholders have been very receptive to that.”

The next steps

So what is involved in the landholder engagement process and how has Marinus Link supported those to be affected by project infrastructure?

“There’s different parts to landholder compensation,” Marinus Link head of community and social impact Mark Lindsay said. “One is through the Victorian Transmission Investment Framework, a state government policy whereby landholders who host new transmission lines receive an annual payment of $8000 per kilometre for 25 years.

“Aside from that, we work closely with all landholders using an independent valuer. That valuer works with the landholder without Marinus Link involved, to determine the operational impacts on their business and the land value prior to, and after, having the asset on-site.

“That valuation model is then presented to the landholder. From there, the landholder decides whether that’s a reasonable amount or whether they want further discussions.”

Facing an increasingly urgent project schedule, Marinus Link will be working closely with land access agents and legal counsel over the coming months to finalise as many voluntarily agreed deeds as possible.

While some landholders have been more resistant than others, Marinus Link has been able to convert many from being oppositional to supportive of the project.

Lindsay pointed to several ways Marinus Link has achieved this.

“Local knowledge is important, staying the course is important, and not shifting your strategy is really important because it builds respect with the landholder,” Lindsay said.

“You must have the right people doing this work – people with a strong sense of the local context. You must also allow time.

“We’ve got some farmers with big farms spanning thousands of acres.

Quite often they’ve said to us over the years: ‘I don’t even want to know about it until it’s a reality’, and we have respected that,” Lindsay said.

“We also need to be mindful of wider circumstances. For instance, during severe weather events in Mirboo North in 2024, we made a deliberate decision not to contact Mirboo North landholders about the project while they were dealing with major community impact.

“Where there’s an escalation point, it’s critical to ensure landholders feel heard and validated, and that it doesn’t feel like Marinus Link is creating what we need from it. This also enables us to provide accurate information and demystify the project.”

When Lindsay started as Marinus Link’s engagement manager in August 2022, there were several “hot spots” for him to navigate. Now, there’s a “lot less volatility”.

“Marinus Link is increasingly resonating with the Gippsland and Tasmanian communities as they understand the benefits this project will bring,” Lindsay said.

“We’re also providing grants, partnership and sponsorship opportunities for the communities where Marinus Link will be constructed.”

Marinus Link early works have commenced at Sandy Point, Victoria.

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Italian company Prysmian will manufacture the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables for Marinus Link. Image: Prysmian

This includes a community grants program open for registered, not-forprofit organisations who demonstrate their project or initiative aligns with Marinus Link’s Sustainability Framework.

A sponsorship program is being established to aid organisations, events and activities through the provision of financial support, while Marinus Link has also committed $40,000 per year over 10 years to the Burnie City Council to deliver initiatives in the Burnie municipality.

Two successful applications will receive $20,000 each year over three years, totalling $60,000, to deliver projects that create lasting benefits for the Burnie community. The first two recipients of this community partnership program are Burnie High School and GreenSTEM. Burnie High School’s Burnie Aware program connects students finishing high school with local industries through workshops, site tours and events, while GreenSTEM’s Greenpower Tasmania program challenges students to design, build and race electric vehicles, inspiring the next generation of tradespeople, engineers and scientists.

Marinus Link recently sought community feedback to help shape its community benefits sharing framework. This will guide how community benefits from Stage 1 of the project are delivered across Tasmania and Victoria during operations.

Words from the CFO

When Marinus Link chief financial and commercial officer Prajit Parameswar

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recently appeared on the first episode of The Energy Magazine Podcast, he concurred with Lindsay’s community engagement approach.

When asked what advice he would give other energy project developers facing social license roadblocks, Parameswar said it was critical that all community engagement was “genuine”.

“It is essential that everyone thinks about early and deep engagement from the start,” he said. “The idea of an orderly transition is not just about the rules and amending the rules, it’s about everyone working together to find a way, and to find a way such that the projects are delivered on time.

“You have to collaborate deeply to achieve shared outcomes and ensure projects such as Marinus Link are sustainable now and into the future.”

Parameswar said telling “real stories” was also critical.

“We’ve started early works in Victoria near a local café,” he said. “I know that people from the project go there to buy egg‑and‑bacon rolls, and I know that demand has increased tenfold since we started development.

“It’s a small thing, but it illustrates the economic stimulus and jobs that projects like Marinus Link bring.

Recognising and communicating that is important.”

November 2025 modelling from AEMO suggested Project Marinus – encompassing Marinus Link and North West Transmission Developments (NWTD) in Tasmania – would save the National Electricity Market (NEM) about $3 billion in costs for meeting future electricity needs.

The 345km interconnector will connect Heybridge in Tasmania with Hazelwood in Victoria. Image: Marinus Link

This would see average wholesale electricity prices fall by up to $25 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for Tasmania and up to $28/MWh for Victoria.

This highlights Marinus Link’s widespread benefits for not only local communities, but also the broader NEM slated to benefit from the interconnector’s energy transfer capabilities.

The Energy Magazine Podcast is available on all major video and streaming platforms.

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Powering the Pilbara

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In just two weeks, ABB commissioned a grid-forming power conversion system for a 50MW battery energy storage system in the Pilbara.

hen a major mining company set out to bolster the resilience of its remote mining operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the brief was clear: the solution had to be robust, fast to deploy and capable of operating in some of the harshest conditions on earth.

A 50-megawatt (MW)/250 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), featuring inverter stations supplied by ABB, has delivered on all three fronts – and underlined why the company sees itself as an early mover and technical leader in gridforming technology.

The BESS sits within an isolated grid where reliability is non-negotiable. For ABB, it was the ideal proving ground.

“Shortly after we commissioned the BESS inverter stations, 100 megawatts went offline suddenly,” Damian Perez De Larraya, global product portfolio manager of ABB’s Renewable Power business, told Energy.

“The 50-megawatt BESS system was able to step in and support the grid; there were no disconnections. It proved itself right away.”

Commissioning didn’t take long, either – a reality made possible by

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decades of research and development (R&D) and product testing.

“We commissioned the BESS in two weeks, and not because we had more resources than you would usually have, but because the technology is so mature that we experienced no hiccups during commissioning,” Perez De Larraya said.

“We’ve been pushing grid-forming technology for decades – the first inverter we operated in grid-forming mode was 11 years ago. Across this time, we’ve refined our solution to the point that it can support complex grids worldwide.”

Turnkey BESS solutions

ABB offers an end-to-end suite of grid-forming energy storage solutions, including power conversion systems (PCS), converter stations, power plant controllers and advanced gridforming controls.

Accompanying proven technologies is the company’s globally recognised testing capabilities, which formed a strong foundation for the Pilbara BESS. At its Madrid testing facility, ABB combines advanced modelling, hardware‑in‑the‑loop (HIL) simulation and large-scale physical test stands.

“Whatever an operator is going to see later on has already been simulated and validated ahead of time,” Nora Han, senior vice president and global head of sales of ABB’s Renewable Power business, told Energy.

“Combine this testing infrastructure with the maturity of our models and we’re not only able to expedite commissioning, but our solutions have every chance of success during operations.”

Clients can also road-test gridforming technology before it reaches site, with ABB providing models amenable to PSCAD, PSSE, DIgSILENT and TSAT and other digital platforms.

Grid-forming innovation is taking ABB on a journey, to the point the company is mastering gridforming technologies down to the specific algorithm.

“Our product manager always tells us that the technology and algorithms are the same, but the grid code and requirements from different countries are different, and are always evolving,” Han said.

“It’s one thing to develop the models, but we always need to focus on ‘perfecting’ our grid‑forming

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ABB recently delivered a gridforming power conversion system for a 50MW BESS in the Pilbara.

A new mining baseline

Australian mining companies are under growing pressure to decarbonise without compromising operational uptime.

In the Pilbara, that means integrating a high share of renewables into grids that were never designed for inverter-based resources – and doing so in an environment where ambient temperatures can hit 50°C and dust is ever-present.

The 50MW BESS faced such conditions but showed no such strain.

This was made possible by ABB’s advanced liquid-cooling technology – which has served the company well in the wind energy industry since the early 2000s.

While the most critical components of an ABB grid-forming PCS are liquid cooled, the less critical parts are air cooled, with 75 per cent of the heat evacuated through liquid.

“A stable temperature is maintained for the most critical components throughout operations, which insulates them from the extreme heat,” Perez De Larraya said.

“And while the performance of an air-cooled asset steadily derates over time, we can handle high temperatures with sustained power, which is

particularly important for missioncritical mining operations.”

An ABB grid-forming PCS is always available to provide resources or grid stability services when needed, no matter the operating environment or temperature.

This capability is not yet commonplace across industry.

“Many suppliers moving into the BESS space come from a solar background, which is traditionally an air‑cooling market,” Han said.

“ABB, in contrast, has a wind heritage, where liquid cooling is widely used because of the space constraint in wind turbine installations. This has enabled us to directly translate technology to the BESS industry.”

The versatility of BESS technology is embodied in ABB’s 50MW Pilbara installation, where the operator will be able to convert, control and dispatch stored energy from a contained unit.

This will provide fast frequency response, voltage support and network stability for the power system

that underpins the major miner’s iron ore operations.

With Australia increasingly requiring system-security solutions with the gradual phase-out of coal-fired generation, grid-forming batteries will be in high demand.

They will be called on to time-shift power, provide inertia services, set voltage and maintain operations during network disturbances, all while supporting the integration of new renewable energy sources.

“Grid‑forming systems are no longer a niche experiment – they’re quickly becoming the backbone of power systems in Australia,” Perez De Larraya said. “What we’ve proven in the Pilbara is not just that ABB’s solutions can handle the toughest conditions on earth, but that they’re ready to support the next generation of mining operations and the broader networks that need them.”

For more info, stop by ABB’s booth (F109) at All Energy or visit abb.com

ABB’s Proteus PCS-E station.

Images: ABB

algorithms and testing infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of our clients and electricity grids worldwide.

“Only then can our technology accurately and safely react to the grid conditions it is exposed to.”

www.energymagazine.com.au

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From home batteries to C&I success

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Within six months, Sigenergy became Australia’s number one residential battery brand, but its ambitions extend far beyond the home.

s Australia experiences a battery boom on a residential and utility scale, the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector could be next as new incentives are introduced.

This is welcome news for Sigenergy, which has quickly become one of Australia’s – if not the world’s – leading battery storage manufacturers.

Sigenergy was recognised by Sunwiz as the number one home battery brand in Australia for 2025.

The company only entered the market in June 2024.

Energy sat down with Sigenergy managing director – Australia and New Zealand, Will Hall, to learn more about the company’s local strategy.

“Our premium products are backed by an esteemed R&D (research and development) team, and local engineering and service divisions to ensure solutions are tailored to Australian conditions,” he told Energy.

“We never sit still, constantly improving our products to better suit our customers. A customer might say, ‘This product doesn’t meet our requirement for X, Y, Z’, and our R&D team will get to it and quickly make any changes.”

From SigenStor – Sigenergy’s esteemed home battery solution – to SigenStack, SigenMate and beyond, the company is rapidly evolving its product portfolio to suit new industries.

Launched at the start of 2026, Hall said SigenStack is already experiencing strong cut-through.

“We got the product certified in March and built up a pipeline, and many of those projects are now starting to land and get installed,” he said.

“Installers love it because it’s quick and easy to install, while businesses like it because it takes up less space.

Typical commercial batteries can be big and bulky, but SigenStack can be installed against the wall, free standing or back-to-back.”

Boasting a light-weight inverter, SigenStack includes stackable 12kWh battery blocks, robust IP66 outdoor protection, and is free of complex wiring.

As Sigenergy says, “just stack, plug-and-play, and enjoy fast, seamless commissioning”.

Sigenergy has supplied SigenStack to dairy and manufacturing industries, as well as schools, hotels, medical centres and hospitals, with critical infrastructure favouring the solution’s backup capability.

“In places like medical centres with refrigerated medicines and critical equipment operating, if there’s a blackout and no backup within 15 minutes, it can have fatal consequences,” Hall said.

“While some systems have a slight delay when switching over to battery Sigenergy’s batteries offer IP66 protection rating and worry-free outdoor usage.

Sigenergy managing director – Australia and New Zealand Will Hall.

backup, SigenStack switches over immediately, providing a safety net critical infrastructure can rely on.”

Sigenergy’s C&I solution can also support load shifting – storing cheaper daytime or off‑peak energy for use when grid prices are high – and energy trading, with the system suitable to virtual power plants and ancillary markets.

These capabilities are being reinforced by evolving policy and market signals. Changes to the Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS) and the emergence of targeted C&I incentives are de-risking investment decisions.

“We’re likely to see the attachment rate (the percentage of solar systems installed with a C&I battery) increase significantly over the next 12 to 18 months as more battery incentives are introduced,” Hall said.

Looking ahead, Sigenergy will soon launch its SigenCube cabinet‑style commercial battery, while the company’s SigenTerra utility‑scale containerised battery is set to arrive next year.

As Sigenergy rides Australia’s battery boom, the company will always prioritise innovation and service.

“We’re creating power plants for homes and businesses, and people can be at real risk if there’s issues with power, particularly in remote areas,” Hall said. “This necessitates an innovative, evolving battery solution backed by uncompromising service.” www.energymagazine.com.au

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Australia’s first hybrid workover rig

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EPSA and Wild Desert have engineered a hybrid workover rig that cuts fuel consumption and emissions in remote operations.

he future of remote industrial power lies in combining the old and new, pairing battery energy storage with conventional diesel generation to support an advanced hybrid energy solution.

Energy Power Systems Australia (EPSA) has seen this first-hand, partnering with Queensland-based field services company Wild Desert to develop Australia’s first hybrid workover rig package.

As the authorised Caterpillar power systems dealer for Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, EPSA helped design, integrate and deploy the hybrid workover

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rig, tailoring it to meet demanding operating environments.

EPSA executive general manager – operations Gemma Collins said hybrid power systems are becoming an increasingly important part of the energy mix as industries such as oil and gas, mining, construction and remote infrastructure balance sustainability objectives with operational requirements.

“We are seeing growing demand from customers looking to improve efficiency and reduce emissions while maintaining the reliability required in critical operations,” Collins said.

“By integrating battery energy storage with proven generation technologies, customers can reduce fuel consumption, lower engine runtime and improve overall system performance.”

Engineering Australia’s first hybrid workover rig

The opportunity to demonstrate these capabilities emerged when Wild Desert set out to develop a next-generation workover rig package capable of operating more efficiently in remote oil and gas fields.

Founded in Roma, Queensland and providing well servicing rigs and field support services across

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Energy Power Systems Australia worked with Wild Desert to engineer, integrate and commission a hybrid energy solution.

EPSA’s engineering team analysed load profiles, optimised system sizing and developed a control strategy that allows the battery to power operations while generators run only when required.

The result is a highly responsive energy system that reduces fuel consumption, lowers emissions and decreases maintenance requirements, while maintaining the reliability essential for remote operations.

Images: Energy Power Systems Australia

Unlocking the value of battery energy storage

regional Australia, Wild Desert wanted to challenge the traditional model of continuous diesel-powered operations and explore how hybrid energy technology could deliver better outcomes.

To bring that vision to life, EPSA worked closely with Wild Desert to engineer, integrate and commission a customised hybrid energy solution comprising: • A Caterpillar PGS1260 battery energy storage system • Two Caterpillar C18 770kVA generators • Advanced power management and control systems • Complete system integration, testing and commissioning “This was Australia’s first batterypowered drilling rig package and the first Caterpillar battery installation of its kind in the country,” Collins said.

“It required a detailed understanding of the rig’s operational profile and energy requirements to ensure the system could deliver reliable performance under demanding field conditions.”

A key advantage of the hybrid system is its ability to capture and reuse regenerative energy generated during lowering operations.

Traditionally, this energy would be lost, but through the integration of battery storage, it can now be captured, stored and redeployed when required, improving overall system efficiency.

This project highlights the growing role battery energy storage systems can play in industrial applications beyond renewable energy integration.

“When integrated correctly, battery storage enables customers to optimise generator performance, improve energy efficiency and create more sustainable operations without compromising reliability,” Collins said.

For Wild Desert, the benefits have been immediate.

“The outcomes are tangible,” Wild Desert chief operating officer Mark Tonin said. “We’ve reduced fuel consumption, lowered emissions, reduced maintenance interventions and minimised exposure to high-risk activities such as field servicing and fuel transport.”

The hybrid system has also created a quieter operating environment for crews and reduced noise impacts for surrounding landholders.

Supporting the future of industrial energy

While Rig 34 represents a first for the Australian oil and gas sector, EPSA sees the project as part of a broader industry transformation, with the pursuit of decarbonisation objectives across mining, energy, construction and remote infrastructure sectors only going one way.

This will see hybrid power systems and battery energy storage technologies become increasingly important components of modern energy strategies, with partnerships such as this project between Wild Desert and EPSA serving as a key reference point for others to follow.

For EPSA, this reflects a growing opportunity to help customers navigate the energy transition through practical, integrated solutions that balance sustainability, reliability and operational performance.

“Projects like this demonstrate that the energy transition is not just about future technologies,” Collins said. “It’s about applying proven technologies in innovative ways to solve real customer challenges today.

“By combining engineering expertise, advanced energy solutions and strong partnerships, we’re helping customers build more efficient, resilient and sustainable operations for the future.”

Australia’s first hybrid workover rig is one example of that future in action – and a powerful example of how EPSA is helping shape the next generation of remote energy solutions.

Energy Power Systems Australia helped design, integrate and deploy a hybrid workover rig for Wild Desert.

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Everllence’s 18V 51/60G gas engines can start from a standby condition to full load in about five minutes.

Firming up the grid

Everllence’s fast-start gas engines are emerging as a reliable firming solution for Australia’s grid.

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he recent surge in demand for gas-fired power generators in Australia is real, and this is not solely derived from the datacentre industry.

Gas plants are seen as critical system-security assets as the country, state-by-state, phases out coal-fired power generation, with flexible generation capacity becoming increasingly important to maintain grid stability in a renewable-dominated energy system.

In Western Australia, all coal facilities are set to be retired by 2030, culminating in the closure of the Muja D power station. This will be followed

by New South Wales and Victoria with closures occurring through the 2030s.

Queensland possesses the youngest coal-fired fleet in Australia, with the state’s plants to continue generating into the 2040s.

Queensland hopes to have 4.1 gigawatts (GW) of gas-fired generation capacity installed by 2030.

As each coal asset closes, the need for reliable firming technologies increases. Batteries are filling this void over short durations, but when wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, gas-powered balancing plants provide a fast-start backstop, turning on whenever called.

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As demand for gas-fired generators increases, gas-engine solutions are attracting more attention across the market. German reciprocating gas engine manufacturer Everllence delivers end-to-end power solutions known for their reliability, versatility and energy efficiency.

“Our reciprocating engine technology is proven to be an extremely competitive alternative to traditional gas turbine solutions,” Everllence head of sales, power plant – Australia and Oceania Lachlan Colquhoun told Energy.

“While an aeroderivative turbine might take 10 to 15 minutes to start up, our 18V 51/60G gas engines can start from a standby condition to full load in about five minutes under typical Australian ambient conditions.

“Engine efficiency of approximately 50 per cent can be achieved in a single cycle, while our units remain cost competitive with less-efficient gas turbine solutions.”

Everllence’s 18V 51/60G gas engines can also perform at high temperatures.

“While other technologies typically lose power output at higher ambient temperatures, we don’t lose power up until above 45°C,” Colquhoun said.

“In Western Australia on a hot summer’s day, for example, when

everyone comes home and turns on their air conditioners, gas plants are often called upon to support the demand peaks. We maintain full nameplate output while competitor performance often declines.”

This makes Everllence engines suitable to WA’s Reserve Capacity Mechanism, which provides annual payments to generators based on their output at 41°C, providing back-up support during peak demand events.

Stable and sustainable grid

The ability to perform at high temperatures is not only important in Western Australia, but other Australian states facing plus-40°C temperatures more regularly.

As Victoria and NSW undergo their own coal phase-out, Everllence’s gasfired units will see increased demand for three reasons.

“Our units can support bulk energy supply and grid stability – two key markets in the energy transition – by being able to provide electricity supplies and firming capacity,” Colquhoun said.

Unlike other power generation technologies, Everllence’s reciprocating gas engines can continue operating at as little as 25 per cent of their rated output. This

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flexibility allows Australian operators to respond to fluctuations in wind and solar generation while maintaining grid stability, making the technology particularly well suited to balancing applications in renewable-dominated power systems.

The engines also offer future-proof fuel options. In addition to natural gas, they can operate on biofuels and synthetic methane, while blends containing up to 25 per cent hydrogen can be accommodated. This provides plant owners with a pathway to lowercarbon operation as Australia’s energy transition progresses.

“The third piece is system strength, which has traditionally been provided by rotating coal‑fired generators,” Colquhoun said.

“As those units retire, AEMO (the Australian Energy Market Operator) has been calling for more systemsecurity technologies to be installed, such as synchronous condensers.

“Our engines can operate in synchronous condenser mode using a clutch, meaning we can provide the rotating mass needed to support these requirements.”

AEMO’s 2026 Integrated System Plan (ISP) outlined the need for $3 billion of system-security investment in the National Electricity Market (NEM) through to 2050 to enable an orderly energy transition, pointing to

synchronous condensers as critical pieces to the puzzle.

The report also forecast the need for 17 gigawatts (GW) of flexible gaspowered capacity in the NEM by 2050.

“Individual (gas) plants would generate up to 10 per cent of their annual potential but will be critical when they run,” the ISP stated. “They may be needed as backup capacity in peak demand periods and will be needed most on days with low renewable availability.”

This plays to Everllence’s strengths.

“We’re confident we’ll be an important part of the energy mix in Australia,” Colquhoun said. “Not only can we meet network needs but can do so with a more versatile, reliable and energy efficient system than many competitors can offer.”

Everllence in action

Everllence is already proven in several Australian applications, including a 30MW dual-fuel gas-fired plant providing baseload power for Alice Springs in the Northern Territory – a remote desert region where summer temperatures regularly exceed 40°C. “We supplied and constructed an NT power station using our reciprocating engine technology in 2010, and there hasn’t been any significant issues since,” Colquhoun said. “It’s proven to be an extremely reliable plant even in the harsh desert climate.”

As Everllence continually evolves its product portfolio, the company is in the latter stages of developing a new gas‑fired reciprocating engine for the power generation market.

“We also supply core compressors and turbines into longer‑duration storage technologies like liquid air and compressed air energy storage,” Colquhoun said. “We’ve developed a package including the engine and an extensive scope of auxiliaries for the Australian market.

“This comprehensive package also accounts for the demands of Australian Standards, making it as simple and low‑risk as possible for Australian customers to design, purchase, and construct these plants.”

As gas-fired generation solidifies its role as a critical support mechanism in the National and Wholesale Electricity Markets, suppliers providing unique solutions will find their point of difference.

This is where Everllence is set to excel, delivering gas engines with rapid start-up, high energy efficiency and the versatility to meet a range of network needs.

The technology is well suited to Australia’s evolving energy landscape, combining reliable operation in high ambient temperatures with the flexibility to support growing renewable energy loads.

German reciprocating gas engine manufacturer Everllence delivers end-to-end power solutions.

Images: Everllence

www.energymagazine.com.au

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FUTURE GRID For many renewable energy projects, the use of biodegradable lubricants is critical.

Image: iprompt/stock.adobe.com

Built for sensitive sites Renewable energy operators are turning to biodegradable lubricants to reduce environmental risk while maintaining performance.

A

s Australia’s renewables rush takes on new shapes and forms, operators are not only expected to generate electricity for the grid but also adhere to strict environmental obligations under the EPBC Act. Many renewable energy projects operate in environmentally sensitive locations, where accidental leaks or spills can impact waterways, soils or marine environments. This makes the use of biodegradable lubricants such as Shell PANOLIN critical in reducing environmental impacts without compromising equipment protection.

Available through Viva Energy Australia, the Shell Lubricants Macro Distributor in Australia, the Shell PANOLIN portfolio includes a range of readily biodegradable and low-ecotoxicity hydraulic, gear and heavy-duty engine oils, greases, and transformer and turbine oils, including leading OEM-approved products.

“Shell PANOLIN S4 HLP Synth 32, 46, 68, for example, were the first Bosch Rexroth-approved biodegradable hydraulic oils, designed for uninterrupted equipment operation,” Viva Energy technical specialist Silvana Farrugia said.

“The Shell PANOLIN portfolio is technically balanced with high biodegradability and is designed for long life with rust and corrosion protection contributing to equipment longevity.”

Shell PANOLIN also provides uncompromising performance. At the forefront of the portfolio is the Shell PANOLIN S4 range, used for hydraulic, gear, stern tube, transformer, wire rope and turbine fluids.

Formulated with saturated esters, Shell PANOLIN is less susceptible to oxidation, supporting exceptional

thermal stability, wear protection and robust load-bearing capabilities.

“The Shell PANOLIN S4 hydraulic range is a great example of this, boasting an extremely low pour point to reduce the risk of metal-on-metal wear,” Farrugia said.

Other offerings include Shell PANOLIN S4 gear oils, with an excellent viscosity index to help the product remain stable even in high heat conditions, pressure, speed and wear – a perfect solution for wind turbines, construction, mining and agriculture applications.

What it means to be biodegradable

Biodegradable lubricants such as Shell PANOLIN demonstrate that sustainability and performance can go hand in hand, helping to reduce environmental risk without compromising equipment protection or operational efficiency.

Shell PANOLIN is classified as “readily biodegradable”, which means 60 per cent or more of the product can be broken down in the natural environment after 28 days, passing the carbon dioxide evolution test (OCED 301B).

It can meet the highest technical standards, is recognised as an “environmentally acceptable lubricant” (EAL) due to its low toxicity towards plants, animals and the environment, and will not bioaccumulate as defined by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Paired with green product lifecycle initiatives such as power lubricant manufacturing, the switch to solar energy, and renewable energy credits, Shell PANOLIN offers a compelling pathway for organisations looking to meet their sustainability objectives.

Formulated with saturated esters, Shell PANOLIN is less susceptible to oxidation.

Image: Viva Energy

As Farrugia explained, biodegradable lubricants are not new.

“Shell PANOLIN products have been trusted by customers in industries like marine and forestry for more than 40 years,” she said. “While they were once considered low quality, this has changed with reformulation advancements in recent years.

“This has seen the reformulation of more balanced lubricants with higher tier synthetic ester base stocks and the development of better additives.”

Backed by more than 40 years of industry experience and leading OEM approvals, Shell PANOLIN offers renewable energy projects a proven solution for supporting sustainability objectives while protecting the environments in which they operate.

Receive a free Shell PANOLIN consult by contacting the Viva Energy technical help desk at technicalhelpdesk@vivaenergy.com.au or 1300 134 205 www.energymagazine.com.au

33

INTEGRATED SYSTEM PLAN

Ten takeaways from the 2026 ISP The 2026 Integrated System Plan delivered a wealth of insights into the current and future state of Australia’s energy market.

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rom surging home battery adoption to growing data-centre loads and the untapped capacity of distribution networks, there was plenty to be gained from the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) recently released 2026 Integrated System Plan (ISP).

Energy took a deep dive to identify 10 key trends from the report.

The demand profile is changing

Not only is the National Electricity Market (NEM) navigating changing supply dynamics with the gradual phase-out of coal-fired power plants, but it is also handling a new wave of demand sources.

Fuel-based industries are increasingly converting to electric power, driving greater grid demand.

The electrification of transport is not only being driven by passenger EVs, but also commercial BEVs, with a growing number of trials exploring the sustainable transport of goods.

New Energy Transport has been a pioneer in this space, recently facilitating Australia’s first all-electric end-to-end freight delivery alongside ANC and Who Gives A Crap, covering 460km all up from Sydney to Canberra.

At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a growing demand driver, with the 2026 ISP forecasting under a ‘Step Change’ scenario* that data centres would drive almost 10 per cent of the NEM’s underlying demand by 2050 – four times what they require today.

These facilities inform the 2026 ISP’s ‘Higher Demand’ sensitivity, which assumes that 39 terawatt-hours (TWh) more electricity would be needed by 2050 than the Step Change scenario.

Under this analysis, demand would increase in South Australia the most (by 18TWh), followed by New South Wales (Sydney–Newcastle–Wollongong

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Energy Magazine

Impact of ‘Higher Demand’ on operational consumption in the National Electricity Market. Image: AEMO

driving 11TWh), Victoria (Melbourne– Geelong driving 4TWh), Queensland (Gladstone driving 3TWh) and Tasmania.

“Overall, the sensitivity projected the need for a large increase in generation and storage capacity across the NEM, largely proportional to the ODP’s (optimal development path) mix of solar, wind, gas and storage,” the ISP stated.

The 2026 ISP forecasts electricity supply for business and industry to grow by 100 per cent, from 140TWh in 2026 to 280TWh by 2050. Much of this informed the Higher Demand analysis, with the electrification of corporate fleets and commercial vehicles (31TWh), non-road freight and industrial processes (45TWh), data centres (34TWh) and hydrogen production (35TWh) set to be key contributors.

Understanding demand flexibility

From growing demand to the changing profile of demand-side resources, the 2026 ISP highlighted the many levers that can be pulled for Australia to feasibly decarbonise.

For the first time, the 2026 ISP includes a ‘Demand Side Factors Statement’ which looks at the role demand-side technologies – such as rooftop solar and home batteries – and demand flexibility can play in supporting a future grid.

While the CER opportunity is increasingly clear, less is known about the behavioural choices consumers can make to unlock cheaper power not only for themselves but the broader electricity market.

Demand flexibility is made possible through the adoption of technologies such as VPPs and V2G, which enables consumers to reduce their loads during extreme conditions of system stress. This is known as demandside participation.

“AEMO forecasts that 2.3GW of this demand-side participation will be available for use by 2050 under Step Change,” the 2026 ISP stated. “This is projected to form 1 per cent of NEM capacity in the ODP by 2050, though not to be called on often.”

INTEGRATED SYSTEM PLAN

Demand-side participation offers reprieve during times of extreme system stress. During such events, such as extreme heat or cold, consumers can call on their own battery storage and resources to cool or heat their homes instead of pulling energy from the grid.

Energy-efficient technologies such as reverse-cycle air conditions are also a solution here, reducing loads during times of system stress. More on this later.

Transmission’s sustained importance

For Australia to achieve its net-zero goals, one of the world’s longest transmission networks will need to get longer.

“In 2022, it stretched for about 43,350km and connected a distribution network of over 764,000km,” the 2026 ISP said of Australia’s transmission network.

“Since then, another 635km of transmission has been added.”

An extra 6000km – or one-seventh – would need to be added to the transmission network under the ODP. “About 40 per cent of the additional length is needed to strengthen the connection between states, adding reliability and stability to electricity supply across the NEM,” the 2026 ISP stated.

“The other 60 per cent connects new capacity in REZs (renewable energy zones) within each state … or provides additional capacity within states to allow cost-effective generation to be transported to demand centres.”

The report called transmission “essential infrastructure” and highlighted eight committed and anticipated transmission projects that will be critical in serving future needs.

The committed projects included HumeLink, Stage 2 of Project EnergyConnect, and network infrastructure for the Hunter–Central Coast and Central–West Orana REZs. Development of these is underway.

Anticipated projects include the Western Renewables Link, Stage 1 of Project Marinus, CopperString, and network inftastructure for the New England REZ. These are highly likely to occur.

These projects will serve as a key backbone for the future grid, making up 3500km of the 6000km needed by 2050.

Batteries surge to the front

Households are becoming increasingly active players in the energy transition, and this was reflected in the 2026 ISP. “Earlier, few households may have thought of what lay behind the three-point plugs, or even how much electricity they used,” the ISP stated.

“Now, there is everyday engagement on how they source electricity and big changes to how, and how much, they use it.”

Home batteries have become a driving force of behind-the-meter decarbonisation, with the Federal Government’s Cheaper Home Batteries program prompting the installation of more than 450,000 home batteries across Australia over the scheme’s first year.

Australia has about 600,000 home batteries installed in total, highlighting the penetration of Cheaper Home Batteries.

While the draft ISP released in December 2025 suggested 27 gigawatts (GW) of home batteries would be installed by 2050 under a Step Change scenario*, the final ISP believes a 35GW home battery fleet can be expected by the midpoint of this century.

By 2050, AEMO expects around two-thirds of the dwellings with solar to be fitted with battery storage.

Rooftop solar continues to shine

While the rooftop solar boom may be in the past, the pioneering consumer energy resource (CER) continues to set the pace in the electricity market.

During the first quarter of 2026, rooftop solar installed on homes and businesses contributed just shy of

16 per cent of the National Electricity Market’s electricity production, making it the most prolific renewable energy source during this time.

Wind energy followed with a 15 per cent contribution, along with gridscale solar (11 per cent) and hydro (5 per cent).

In South Australia, rooftop solar has single-handedly powered the state’s grid on at least 18 occasions.

This included Sunday March 8 this year, where rooftop solar contributed to at least 100 per cent of demand on multiple occasions. At 1:35pm, for example, renewables contributed to 114 per cent of demand, with rooftop comprising 108.5 per cent and wind making up 5.5 per cent.

The 2026 ISP forecast rooftop solar in the NEM to sit atop 47 per cent of solar-suitable homes by 2035 under the Step Change scenario and 56 per cent by 2050. This is up from today’s 36 per cent figure.

The key driver of this? “Ever-falling costs”, the report stated.

V2G enters the fray

The 2026 ISP suggests declining prices, a wider range of choices and improved charging infrastructure will be triggers for accelerated adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) into the future.

While this is hardly noteworthy, the rise of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) adoption is.

The numbers aren’t earth-shattering, but the 2026 ISP expects just over 10 per cent of household EVs to be able to charge and discharge electricity through V2G by 2050. This is coming from a low base, with only a handful of V2G chargers currently available in Australia.

The 2026 ISP forecast rooftop solar in the NEM to adorn 47 per cent of solar-suitable homes by 2035.

Image: Ausgrid.

www.energymagazine.com.au

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INTEGRATED SYSTEM PLAN

The 2026 ISP expects over 10 per cent of household EVs to be able to charge and discharge electricity through V2G by 2050. Image: Ausgrid

A 10 per cent V2G footprint would add 4.3GW of storage capacity to the NEM and serve as a key CER plank in a future energy system. The 2026 ISP said bundling and coordinating CER would provide the highest benefit.

“VPPs (virtual power plants) and V2G charging of EVs may respond to market signals and contribute to system reliability and system security,” the report stated. “Doing so would avoid up to $5 billion being spent on additional grid-scale storage in the NEM through to 2050.”

More education about VPPs

Subtle references are made to virtual power plants throughout the 2026 ISP, which enable home battery users to financially benefit from returning supplies back to the grid, with software enabling the control of this system.

In particular, the 2026 ISP forecasts that with NEM rooftop solar capacity expected to reach 87GW by 2050, this would be supported by 35GW of CER battery capacity, with more than half of these batteries participating in a VPP. An Energy Consumers Australia survey from October 2025 found 10 per cent of Australian battery owners were currently in a VPP, underlining the growth needed to meet future projections.

The 2026 ISP acknowledged greater awareness of CER opportunities such as VPPs was being made available through the National CER Roadmap, which is being gradually rolled out across a range of projects and verticals.

But this isn’t adequate.

“More is needed to build consumer awareness and social licence, so

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Energy Magazine

that higher levels of coordination can be reached,” the report stated. “VPP products might offer explicit benefits to CER owners, alongside broader campaigns that stress the benefits to all consumers.

“Consumer protections must be in place so that homeowners and small businesses can trust those providers to run their CER safely, in their interest, and without them having to be energy experts.”

The 2026 ISP believes CER coordination involving rooftop solar, home batteries and VPPs, for example, could be one of the most valuable mechanisms to achieving net-zero targets at a lower cost.

What can be made of data centres

While data centres are no new phenomenon, the investment in these facilities is rapidly increasing. In fact, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation

expects Australia’s data-centre industry to attract between $85–135 billion in investment within a decade, increasing capacity fourfold.

This places rising demand on the grid, particularly from those facilities not powered by renewable energy.

The 2026 ISP acknowledged the demand trajectory of data centres remained unclear.

“There are many uncertainties in their forecast consumption through the 2030s and 2040s, as industry expectations on both connection rates and technical frameworks are revised,” the report stated.

Data centres directly influence the 2026 ISP’s three core scenarios, along with the Higher Demand sensitivity.

While Australia’s data-centre fleet, with over 160 facilities dotted around the country, currently accounts for around 2 per cent of today’s gridsupplied electricity use, this is projected to grow around 25 per cent annually to reach the 2050 mark of almost 10 per cent of underlying NEM demand.

With the electricity system growing as Australia’s population increases, this equates to 20 per cent of today’s total demand.

“At the end of the March 2026 quarter, 11 large data centres representing a total of over 5GW of maximum demand were in the connections pipeline,” the 2026 ISP stated. “Connections have taken about two years from application to energisation, similar to battery projects, and ramp up to full demand over 5–10 years.”

A rule change that would see new technical standards established for NEM-connected data centres is set to

Business and industry electricity consumption in the National Electricity Market under AEMO’s Step Change scenario. Image: AEMO

INTEGRATED SYSTEM PLAN

be finalised by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) this year.

This would propose three key changes, including a clearer framework for defining and classifying large inverter-based loads such as data centres. This would help protect against grid-disturbance events such as what occurred in Virginia, US in July 2024.

This saw cascading failures and instability occur when 60 data centres pulled 1500MW off the grid at once during a fault.

Secondly, data centres would need to meet specific disturbance ridethrough requirements, while the rule change would also align Australia’s practices with international standards, such as those used in Ireland, Finland and Texas, US. A further proposed rule change from the AEMO concerns the operational integration and visibility of large inverter-based loads.

“These reforms respond to the current reliance on bespoke, caseby-case arrangements, which limit efficient investment signals and system operation,” the 2026 ISP stated. “The proposed changes will introduce consistent operational requirements and streamline connection processes.”

The rise of energy efficiency

While energy efficiency sounds simple on the surface, this concept will play a key role in reducing electricity demand in the future.

Under the Step Change scenario, the 2026 ISP sees energy-efficient

Generation forecasts in the National Electricity Market under AEMO’s Step Change scenario. Image: AEMO

technologies reducing consumption by 15 per cent or 75TWh by 2050.

“The specific drivers of these reductions vary between the household, business and industrial sectors, though there are common themes,” the 2026 ISP stated. “The rollover of stock is the main factor, as new appliances, commercial fit-outs and building designs are typically more energy efficient than old ones.”

Examples of energy-efficient technologies in the home include insulation, reverse-cycle air conditioners and doubleglazed windows.

The 2026 ISP said while household efficiency is being driven by standards and incentives, commercial building efficiency is being driven by investor and occupant demand, and industrial efficiency is being driven by the cost savings on offer.

The 2026 ISP sees energy-efficient technologies reducing NEM consumption by 15 per cent or 75TWh by 2050. Image: Ausgrid

Gas to back up renewables

The 2026 ISP affirmed the importance of gas-powered generation as a support mechanism in the NEM, with 17GW of gas-powered capacity needed by 2050 to support the ODP. “After coal-fired generators retire, gas will increasingly be needed to back up renewable supply (during periods of renewable lulls and peak demand), as well as for power system security services,” the 2026 ISP stated.

This will see the installation of newer, more flexible generators which can be regularly switched on to serve a back-up role. The 2026 ISP suggests the 17GW fleet would replace today’s 4GW of ‘mid-merit’ continuous generating plants and 8GW of ‘peaking’ plants.

The 2026 ISP suggests gas plants would only generate up to 10 per cent of their annual potential, “but will be critical when they run”.

“They may be needed as back-up capacity in peak demand periods and will be needed most on days with low renewable availability,” the report stated. “This is more likely to be in winter, especially in the southern states, when shorter days reduce solar output, and when more electricity is needed for longer and colder nights.” *Step Change is the likeliest of three scenarios AEMO proposes in its 2026 ISP (46 per cent probability), followed

by Slower Growth and Acceleration Transition (both 27 per cent probability). Step Change reflects an energy transition consistent with limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C – higher than the 1.5°C target. www.energymagazine.com.au

37

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DATA CENTRES

Keeping data centres running

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Decon Corporation is powering Australia’s booming data-centre industry with locally made switchboards.

ustralia’s appetite for data shows no sign of slowing down.

From cloud computing and artificial intelligence to online banking, streaming and digital services, the demand for data centres continues to grow, including the infrastructure needed to keep them running.

When people think about a data centre, they typically picture rows of servers neatly stacked together.

In reality, none of that technology works without a reliable electrical system behind it. Every server, cooling unit and backup power system depends on switchboards that distribute power safely and reliably, 24 hours a day.

This part of the industry is rarely seen but remains fundamental to the way every data centre operates.

And as facilities become larger and more sophisticated, the demands placed on electrical infrastructure is only increasing.

“Reliability, redundancy and compliance are no longer features that set data-centre projects apart.

They are expected from the outset,” Mohamad Tawfik, general manager of Decon Corporation’s RG Ladd division, said.

“For Australian manufacturers, that means expectations are changing.”

RG Ladd is helping meet that demand through the design and manufacture of electrical switchboards for major data-centre developments across Australia. By keeping sheet metal fabrication, powder coating, assembly and testing in-house, the division maintains control over the manufacturing process from design through to delivery.

“Keeping those capabilities under one roof brings practical advantages,” Tawfik said. “Engineering and production teams work closely together, making it easier to manage design changes and maintain quality.

“By reducing the reliance on external suppliers, we can also mitigate procurement and lead time risks and keep projects on schedule.”

In data-centre environments where even a brief interruption to power

g

RG Ladd manufactures type-tested lowvoltage switchboards in accordance with AS/NZS 61439. Image: Decon Corporation

can have significant operational consequences, there is little margin for error.

RG Ladd takes no shortcuts, manufacturing type-tested lowvoltage switchboards in accordance with AS/NZS 61439, ensuring assemblies meet recognised Australian standards for safety and performance.

While switchboards remain at the core of Decon’s business, they are supported by a broader manufacturing capability.

“RG Ladd also designs and manufactures telecommunications shelters, equipment enclosures and equipment racks used throughout Australia’s communications and digital infrastructure,” Tawfik said.

“All are proudly Australian Made certified, reflecting Decon’s commitment to local manufacturing and sovereign capability.”

The growth of Australia’s datacentre sector has also sharpened the focus on Australian manufacturing.

“Local production enables better visibility across the supply chain and the flexibility to respond quickly if project requirements change,” Tawfik said. “For critical infrastructure projects such as data centres, those advantages can make a meaningful difference.”

The switchboards, telecommunications shelters, equipment racks and enclosures manufactured by RG Ladd rarely attract attention once a data centre is operational, which is exactly how they were developed.

“RG Ladd’s solutions are developed to perform day in, day out, providing a reliability that data centres desire and can depend on,” Tawfik said.

Behind every new data centre is an extensive network of electrical infrastructure. It may not be easily visible, but it is critical to sustaining operations and the bottom line of any project. www.energymagazine.com.au

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DATA CENTRES

Socomec Digiware provides customers the visibility to anticipate power quality issues before they affect power availability. Image: IM Imagery/shutterstock.com

Every watt counts

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Energy performance is becoming a defining challenge for Australia’s rapidly expanding data-centre fleet.

ustralia’s AI infrastructure boom is forcing data-centre operators to rethink how they monitor and manage energy consumption, as concerns grow over the sector’s impact on the National Electricity Market and wholesale electricity prices more broadly.

This brings the energy-management engine of a data centre firmly into view.

As one of Australia’s most recognised names in electrical and automation solutions, NHP has already established a strong footprint in critical infrastructure projects including datacentre applications, through uptake of its PLC-based cooling control systems, modular switchboard systems and power switching devices (e.g. automatic transfer switches).

NHP’s local engineering capability, manufacturing and service and support takes this a step further, helping customers achieve sustained uptime – a core need for mission-critical data-centre operations.

But the company has larger aspirations, with a committed push to become a leading Australian

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Energy Magazine

data-centre technology partner – one that is tackling the energyconsumption conundrum head on.

This comes as many data centres face extended lead times, delayed maintenance response, and a lack of end-to-end support from international suppliers.

“Established in Melbourne in 1968, NHP has decades of experience in providing technology that optimises critical infrastructure across Australia,” NHP business development, projects, data centres Robin Stephenson told Energy.

“We’re a local partner of choice that combines Australian-based manufacturing and engineering with solutions from trusted global datacentre partners such as Socomec, Rockwell and Delta.”

Socomec Digiware

At the heart of NHP’s push is Socomec Digiware – a versatile power monitoring system taking data-centre intelligence to a new level.

Digiware offers a modular, system-level approach to energy

management, power monitoring and power quality analysis that differs from traditional point-meter designs.

While individual panel-mount meters are likely installed at main switchboards, with current transformers (CTs), auxiliary contacts, and residual current monitoring (RCM) hardware integrated separately, Digiware is different.

This solution comprises compact modules for measurement aggregation, local processing, communications and gateway functions, along with a family of smart current sensors and branch circuit strips.

A single Digiware module can replace dozens of individual meters and CTs in a power distribution unit (PDU), significantly reducing the required footprint, amount of cabling and commissioning time.

“Digiware is designed specifically for environments like data centres where operators have plenty of circuits, evolving standards, and strict uptime and PUE (power usage effectiveness) optimisation requirements,” NHP

DATA CENTRES

business development, energy management solutions Alexandre Yacoub told Energy.

“Instead of integrating different devices and brands for metering, breaker status, residual current and power quality, Digiware consolidates everything into one system. This simplifies design and installation and ensures all energy monitoring infrastructure and software comes from the one brand, which ensures best-inclass accuracy across all data-centre electrical boards.”

For Stephenson, the real Digiware advantage is in its physical format and flexibility.

“Instead of using large panel meters and a mess of CT wiring, you’ve got small, modular cards and sensor strips you can drop wherever you need them – main boards, PDUs, bus ducts – without blowing out space and wiring,” he said.

“With Digiware, you can cover energy management, circuit status, board health and protection status in one hit. If you’re already putting in metering, why not also get breaker status and residual current information through the same system instead of bolting on extra hardware?”

Digiware provides customers continuous, granular visibility to anticipate power quality issues before they affect power availability.

“If you’ve got Digiware installed across site and something starts tripping or misbehaving, we can use that data to run a power quality audit, work out what’s going on and then develop a fix,” Stephenson said.

“This is what NHP can provide beyond just selling hardware – we work with data-centre operators to develop in-situ solutions that

NHP’s Alexandre Yacoub (left) and Robin Stephenson (right).

evolve with changing standards and technology updates.

“This sets up sites for whatever operating environments they are subjected to – now and in the future.”

Better power

Digiware also helps data-centre operators optimise the power usage effectiveness of IT and non-IT loads – a grading of PUE 1,2 or 3 – where the highest PUE is achieved by measuring and optimising all points of a data centre, inclusive of PDUs, remote power panels (RPPs) and main/ distribution boards.

“As a modular solution, Digiware is specifically designed to help data centres reach PUE 3,” Yacoub said.

“Operators can install small modules right across their data centre and link these together to achieve a higher level of monitoring.

“This helps operators optimise their energy usage. Digiware can identify energy wastage across the data

Socomec Digiware is a power monitoring system taking data-centre intelligence to a new level. Images: NHP’

centre, whether it be in HVAC or pump systems, and operators can make changes as necessary.”

The compact Digiware unit also delivers high accuracy throughput, particularly given servers rarely run at full load.

“When servers aren’t operating at full load, traditional meters see the accuracy of their measurements drop significantly,” Yacoub said.

“With Digiware, the whole system – the measurement unit, the sensors and the cabling – is designed and characterised together. That means we can guarantee high accuracy across the entire operating range, including low loads where other systems typically drift.”

Accurate data is particularly valuable in colocation data centres, where tenants are billed on actual consumption.

“Because Digiware remains accurate at partial loads, tenants can be billed and investment decisions can be made based on accurate data,” Yacoub said.

Socomec Digiware is compliant to cyber standard IEC 62443 and comes paired with intuitive software to guarantee the system and software meet cybersecurity requirements for a seamless and safe energy management experience.

“Rather than requiring separate solutions and products from different suppliers, Digiware’s software provides an easy-to-use, embedded, end-to-end view of a data centre’s energy system,” Yacoub said.

“At the same time, Digiware acts as a communication gateway. Using standard protocols like Modbus TCP, SNMP or BacnetIP, any BMS or PLC can pull data from one point instead of talking to multiple devices and brands.”

At a time where the energy consumption of data centres is being increasingly scrutinised, optimising asset performance and mitigating energy wastage not only boosts profits but also ensures AI infrastructure remains compliant.

With Socomec Digiware, data-centre operators can unlock all these benefits with one system, enabling energy management and power monitoring to become second nature.

For more info, stop by NHP’s booth (V119) at All Energy or visit nhp.com.au www.energymagazine.com.au

41

INDUSTRY EVENTS

A renewable energy adventure undreds of exhibitors, tens of thousands of attendees, and a thought-provoking conference program.

This is just some of what you can expect when All Energy Australia returns to Melbourne from October 28–29.

Asia Pacific’s largest clean energy event continues to grow year on year in line with Australia’s renewables boom – so much so that All Energy Australia now occupies most of Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre’s (MCEC) 40,000km2 exhibition floor space.

“We are as big as we can get the MCEC in Melbourne – there’s no more space for us to take,” Exhibition director of event organiser RX Australia, Robby Clark, said.

All Energy’s increased footprint can not only be put down to the event’s growing profile, but also the growing profile of its exhibitors.

“Many of our long-standing exhibitors and sponsors have broadened

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Energy Magazine

their product offerings,” Clark said.

“Businesses that were traditionally focused on solar have expanded their offerings to include BESS (battery energy storage systems), electrification and grid network integration.

“This diversification is also attracting a wider visitor audience, with more opportunities for attendees to engage across the full energy ecosystem.”

The rise of data centres

A new industry segment will debut at All Energy Australia 2026, with data centres to form part of the event’s Grid and Network Zone agenda.

Clark acknowledged this was a rapidly growing sub-sector of the energy transition, and one which All Energy Australia is well across.

All Energy Australia 2026 promises another jam-packed conference program.

Images: RX Global

H

With nearly 500 exhibitors and new data-centre content, All Energy Australia 2026 reflects a rapidly evolving energy sector.

INDUSTRY EVENTS

All Energy Australia brings together a cross-section of the global renewable energy industry.

“As AI becomes more embedded in everyday life, demand for data centres continues to accelerate,” he said. “At the same time, these facilities face increasing pressure to operate sustainably, with a growing reliance on renewable energy.

“This creates a natural intersection with All Energy Australia, particularly as grid infrastructure plays a critical role in connecting and integrating these developments.”

All Energy Australia 2026 will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions and workshops on the future of data centres and their impact on energy. Data-centre developers and technology providers will also be showcasing the latest AI advancements at All Energy’s innovation district.

“It’s critical that we stay at the forefront of AI and data centre developments within renewable energy,” Clark said. “We have invested significant time in ensuring our content is both relevant and responsible.

“While this is an exciting space, it’s also one that requires careful consideration. Given the pace of change, it’s important we provide clear, credible and well-informed content for our audience.”

Energy Storage, Fronius Australia, ABB and Hitachi Energy. The likes of Origin Energy, Flow Power and SEC Victoria will represent the energy retailing sector.

Other notable names within the 500-strong exhibitor lineup include Anker Solix, Canadian Solar, Sigenergy and FranklinWH, while industry entities such as Electric Vehicle Council, Clean Energy Council and Austrade will also be represented.

Alongside the Grid and Network Zone, which provides a platform for suppliers driving the future of grid stability, decentralisation and digitalisation, the EV Technology and Infrastructure Zone, spanning more than 1000m2, will showcase the innovations driving Australia’s transition to electric mobility.

Expect the latest EV chargers, software and supporting infrastructure, creating a central hub for learning and discovering the technologies accelerating national EV adoption.

Elsewhere, the Energy Management Zone recognises that homes and businesses are seeking new ways to decarbonise, diversify renewable energy use and reduce costs. This space will provide a platform for suppliers to present products and services that support smarter, more efficient energy systems in consumer and commercial applications.

As All Energy Australia evolves with the rapidly advancing and smartening renewable energy industry it is connected to, it will once again provide ample opportunity for learning and discovery.

This will see the event plunge itself into new sub-sectors and continue to tackle the key challenges facing the energy transition.

Sungrow, BYD Energy Storage, Hitachi Energy and ABB are just some of the prominent exhibitors locked in.

Exhibition hall

Prominent exhibitors participating in All Energy Australia 2026 include innovators such as Sungrow, BYD www.energymagazine.com.au

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INDUSTRY EVENTS

Introducing the Utility Awards

E

The inaugural Utility Awards will celebrate the people, projects and organisations driving innovation and excellence across Australia’s essential services sector.

very day, Australians rely on essential services without a second thought, yet the utilities sector is navigating one of the most significant periods of transformation in its history.

As the energy transition accelerates, infrastructure modernisation becomes more urgent and customer expectations increase, utilities are balancing the pulse of change with the reliability communities depend on.

This has inspired new technologies, solutions and ways of operating – achievements which, to this point, largely happened behind the scenes.

The inaugural Utility Awards have been created to change that.

Backed by leading organisations across the sector, the awards program will recognise excellence across Australia’s essential services industry.

This includes principal partner Autodesk – a global provider of digital twin solutions to support the entire electricity lifecycle – as well as gold partners Zinfra and Lanco Group.

As utilities continue to adapt to changing demands, Autodesk head of water infrastructure Asia Pacific, The Utility Awards seeks to acknowledge everyone from frontline crews to experienced industry leaders. Image: agnormark/stock.adobe.com

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Energy Magazine

Japan and China, Chris Ryan, said recognising success has never been more important.

“As a major supplier of software tools that help with the planning, design and operations of utilities, Autodesk is supporting the awards to help showcase the skills and capabilities of this industry,” he said.

“The way this industry innovates and the excellence that drives this are typically behind the scenes, and these people and projects need to be showcased and applauded.”

The awards feature 15 categories spanning project delivery, network innovation, safety, decarbonisation and collaboration, including Utility of the Year, Utility Project of the Year, Digital Transformation Project of the Year and Rising Star in Utilities.

The program seeks to acknowledge everyone from frontline crews to experienced industry leaders.

For Zinfra, the awards reflect a commitment to recognising the people and partnerships behind the sector’s success.

“Supporting the inaugural Utility Awards is a natural extension of our

commitment to the industry we are proud to be part of,” Zinfra managing director Peter Iancov said.

“Recognising excellence in this way is critical in an industry that underpins the daily lives of millions of Australians.

“By celebrating leading practice, we help lift standards across the sector and drive continuous improvement in how essential services are delivered.”

As one of Australia’s largest utility infrastructure services companies, it is its people that make Zinfra’s business tick.

“As a company with more than 2800 team members delivering essential services, we know our strength lies in our people,” Iancov said.

“These inaugural Utility Awards shine a spotlight on the very best of the utilities industry, from the longstanding professionals setting the standard to the rising stars coming through the ranks.”

Nominations for the 2026 Utility Awards are now closed, with finalists to be announced on September 7 ahead of the awards presentation in Melbourne on October 27.

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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Five lessons for every renewables project

C

Early civil engineering decisions can prevent costly redesigns and keep battery and solar projects on track from concept to construction.

ivEng Consulting intimately understands the civil and structural engineering considerations that underpin renewable energy projects.

As a consultant on Australian substation, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and solar farm projects, the company sees how civil engineering parameters are being tested as developers push to get their projects installed.

CivEng sheds light on five lessons learned from decades in the field.

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Energy Magazine

Don’t lock in megawatts too early

In CivEng’s experience, BESS developers will often fix the site boundary and megawatt capacity early in the piece, then pack in as many batteries as possible to support the financial model.

A civil review might then reveal that there’s not enough room for access roads, turning paths, drainage, batters and other earthworks.

If not identified and addressed early in the process, costly workarounds such as retaining walls, underground

drainage or longer cable runs may then be required to ensure the project is compliant.

“On a past project, the battery layout was arranged to maximise the megawatts, but did not consider the site topography,” CivEng Consulting co-founder Vincent Kelly told Energy.

“We had to implement a tiered site with extended retaining walls in order to make this work.”

By strategising civil works early in the design phase, developers will have clear sight of their topographical

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

advantages, empowering them to shape layouts and platforms around the existing ground.

They can also co‑optimise civil and electrical layouts, reserving direct cable corridors and placing electrical hubs strategically to avoid re-routes that could add hundreds of metres of cable runs.

Use ECI to anchor design

In CivEng’s experience, optimising the construction methodology of a project depends heavily on who is going to build it.

Different contractors might have different cost profiles and construction processes for the same design concept. Early contractor involvement (ECI) ensures the right civil contractor is chosen for the job.

“If you talk to different civil contractors, one might recommend driven steel piles, while another might prefer concrete,” CivEng

Consulting co-founder Dave Jones told Energy. “It comes down to their equipment, experience and supply chains.”

CivEng was recently engaged early to model the earthworks and firefighting ponds of a BESS project, which set the asset up for success.

“CivEng could determine how the developer intended to build the project and designed around that,” Jones said. “The developer then took those quantities to market, got ballpark pricing from civil contractors, and clearly understood their preferences before anything was fixed.”

In many projects, by contrast, contractors only see the job at the 70–80 per cent design phase, when foundation types and layouts are essentially locked in. If they wanted to make any changes to the construction methodology, this could be difficult and expensive.

Design vs. reality

CivEng repeatedly sees issues where construction follows a 3D design file too literally without reconciling it with real ground conditions.

“More and more earthworks are being built straight off CAD (computer-aided design) files,” Kelly said. “If no one considers how design translates on the ground, this often creates a mismatch with the actual site requirements.

“On one job, we found surveys hadn’t accurately captured how overland flow crossed a site. The road was built to the model, but excess water ran straight across it and washed part of it out.

“This had to be rectified after construction rather than designing for it up front, creating a headache and additional cost for the asset owner.”

As Kelly highlighted, solutions need to be determined “through conversations”.

CivEng repeatedly sees projects follow a 3D design file too literally without reconciling it with real ground conditions.

Image: Steve/shutterstock.com

www.energymagazine.com.au

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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

BESS developers will often fix the site boundary and megawatt capacity early, before a civil review reveals constraints. Image: Harley Kingston/stock.adobe.com

“There will always be mismatches between design models and the actual topography,” he said. “The best way to resolve this is through conversations on-site, where we can explain the design intent and determine the right adjustment with the contractor.”

This can direct the whole footing strategy in the wrong direction.

Developers are instead advised to agree on a footing strategy early, explicitly and in context – factoring in local supply chains, contractor methodology, and conduit routing.

The right footings for the job

For a battery or solar project, the most valuable work happens at concept or around the 30 per cent design stage, when layouts, foundation strategies, access and drainage are still flexible.

For CivEng, one of the most important – and misunderstood – decisions on battery and solar projects is how the equipment is founded: piles, pads, slabs on ground, bored piers, and beyond.

The ‘right’ footing is not just a structural question, but a practical construction choice.

“We always ask up-front, ‘What is your preference for the footings?’,” Kelly said. “We can make most options work, but the real answer can be region-dependent and rely on things like concrete availability, fabrication and the contractor building it.”

Developers also tend to default to whatever is shown in OEM drawings, even when those details are generic and not tailored to site.

“We’ve seen plenty of OEM manuals where the footings are just square blocks on a page,” Kelly said. “Many of these are produced overseas and not written with a specific Australian site, contractor or supply chain in mind.”

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Energy Magazine

Bring civil input in early

Without an early civil voice, key decisions on these priorities are either pushed back or made by default. Jones recalled a BESS project where CivEng tried to recommend optimising footings early on – and got little traction.

“The developer was focused on project planning and power purchase agreements, so the civil detail wasn’t prioritised,” Jones said. “This isn’t detrimental initially, but the longer these decisions are ignored, the more problematic it can become.”

Ignored for too long and this can trigger a chain of late – and costly – changes.

By bringing civil in early, developers can prevent expensive re‑work when projects hit tender or construction, and ensure their layout actually works on site and within the local context.

Early civil input acts as risk insurance on three fronts – cost, constructability and schedule – at a stage when adjustments are practical and affordable.

Backed by 80 years of combined industry experience, CivEng Consulting has worked on enough renewable energy and power projects to understand the common mistakes made in design and construction phases.

The company is putting this wisdom to good use, setting Australian BESS, solar and substation assets up for long-term success.

CivEng Consulting is backed by 80 years of combined civil engineering experience.

Image: CivEng Consulting

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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Why legacy assets are at risk

C

AI is exposing hidden vulnerabilities in legacy energy infrastructure, making every OT hardware refresh a critical cybersecurity opportunity.

ybersecurity used to depend on a simple fact: finding flaws in old industrial hardware took rare, specialist skill. That’s no longer true.

In April 2026, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing (a coalition that includes Cisco, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and others) to test what its latest AI model could do when pointed at the world’s critical software.

The results were striking. The model found thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities, including one bug that had sat undetected in a widely used operating system for 27 years, despite extensive human review.

This has ramifications for brownfield energy and utilities applications that rely on industrial hardware

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Energy Magazine

developed at least 5–10 years ago, which are based on now-antiquated cybersecurity protocols.

“The skill barrier protecting old infrastructure is eroding fast, and there’s no reason to think that erosion stops at software,” Madison Technologies solutions engineer Corey Nesbitt told Energy.

“The same pattern-finding capability that found a 27-year-old flaw in an operating system doesn’t recognise a meaningful difference between code running in a data centre and code running in a switch on a plant floor.

“Finding weaknesses no longer takes a small pool of rare experts.

That’s now a concern for anyone running operational technology (OT).”

If you’re running brownfield energy or utilities infrastructure, Australia’s Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act doesn’t list specific security steps, it asks you to take “reasonable” ones, judged against current risk and what’s realistically achievable.

The same legacy switch that was a defensible risk two years ago is harder to call reasonable now that finding its flaws no longer takes rare expertise.

It’s now within reach of someone with basic AI literacy and a few hours on their hands.

It also widens the list of things worth checking. Switches, protocol converters, edge sensors, and historians installed a decade or more ago were built for durability, not

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Many brownfield energy and utilities applications might feature nowantiquated cybersecurity protocols.

Image: SeventyFour/shutterstock.com

security. Many have limited (or no) authentication or encryption. Even in a segmented network, a device like that is a soft spot, and you can’t protect a device that wasn’t built for today’s cybersecurity demands.

“The instinct is to treat this as a reason to panic and rip things out,” Nesbitt said. “It’s not, but it is a reason to be specific about your next steps.

“When a switch or protocol converter is due for replacement, that’s the moment to ask whether it can actually see what’s happening on the network, not just pass traffic. Most legacy gear was never built to answer that question. The fix is making sure the next device you put in is one that can.”

The good news

Manufacturers are already responding.

Cisco is building OT security straight into the switching hardware rather than treating it as an add-on.

Cisco Cyber Vision (for visibility) and Secure Equipment Access (for remote access) now ship as standard on the IE3500 and IE9300

Rugged Series switches. This means asset discovery, behavioural monitoring, and IEC 62443 zone segmentation come built in.

That lowers the cost of getting started, and because the visibility lives in the core switching layer, everything talking to it, like humanmachine interfaces (HMIs), historians and sensors, inherit that visibility too.

Moxa has tackled the other end of the problem: the edge. The NPort 6000-G2 Series is the first serial device server to achieve IEC 624434-2 Security Level 2 certification.

This is independent proof that it can resist a deliberate attacker, not just survive an accident.

“In practice, that means functionality most serial device servers have never had: telling individual users apart, verifying updates before applying them, and shutting down sessions that are left idle,” Nesbitt said. “Small details, but they’re exactly the gaps an attacker with even modest skill would look for.

“These are different layers, but they highlight the same shift: security is moving from something

added to the device, to something built into the device by default.”

What this means for your next refresh cycle

For energy operators, this isn’t a case for ripping out infrastructure that still works. It’s a case for treating your next planned refresh as a security upgrade, not just a like-for-like swap.

“When you’re due to replace a switch, a protocol converter, or an edge device, check it against two things: IEC 62443 certification and embedded visibility,” Nesbitt said.

“Vendors closest to the problem are already building the answer into existing hardware, meaning updates are just as effective as upgrades.”

The practical move: don’t just audit your obvious entry points.

Walk the full device list (switches, converters, sensors, historians) and flag anything that lacks embedded visibility or IEC 62443 certification.

And if you can’t walk the full device list because nobody’s entirely sure what’s connected, or where, that’s not a side issue. That’s the starting point. www.energymagazine.com.au

51

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

The distribution dividend

Ausgrid’s 5MW community battery at Cooranbong, Lower Hunter.

Images: Ausgrid.

Once overlooked, distribution networks are emerging as a faster, lower-cost lever to achieving Australia’s energy transition targets.

A

ustralia’s distribution networks are emerging as one of the biggest untapped opportunities in the energy transition.

According to NSW distribution network service providers (DNSPs) Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy, greater distributionlevel investment could unlock up to $4.3 billion of economic and systemwide benefits through to 2050.

This could buy Australia 2–5 years in the energy transition if there are delays in the transmission build-out. By 2050, distribution-connected wind and solar could reduce gas-powered generation by 50 terawatt-hours – displacing almost four years of NSW’s current gas consumption.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) signalled the importance of distribution networks in its 2026 Integrated System Plan (ISP), suggesting $600 million of investment was needed to best position this

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Energy Magazine

industry segment on the road to net zero.

Ausgrid group executive – external affairs and strategy Tim Jarratt said this acknowledgement – the first time distribution-network investment has been modelled in an ISP – was an important moment for DNSPs. “It shows that AEMO and policymakers are beginning to realise there is more potential in DNSPs than they previously gave them credit for,” he told Energy. “The importance of distribution networks in achieving emissions-reduction mandates is becoming clearer by the day.”

While the ISP historically focused on large‑scale transmission and generation, Jarratt said the rise of “two‑way” energy flows required a new way of thinking about planning the grid.

“For a long time, a top‑down view was fine – you modelled largescale generation and everything

else followed,” he said. “Now, with so much happening at the neighbourhood level, you need to marry that top‑down view with a bottom‑up understanding of what’s possible in distribution.”

He believes that combining AEMO’s system‑wide lens with local insights from DNSPs will deliver “a faster and cheaper way of transitioning to net zero”.

“Our Distribution System Plan (DSP) Opportunities report was built on that hypothesis – that if you start at street level and build up, you’ll end up with a better solution than you would from just a single, top‑down plan,” Jarratt said.

Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy jointly released the DSP Opportunities report in December 2025, providing an Australian-first roadmap for how distribution networks can support the energy transition in New South Wales.

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

The REZ revolution

A key mandate of DNSPs operating in the National Electricity Market (NEM) is the delivery of renewable energy zones (REZs), which aim to orchestrate solar and wind farms across Australia.

Ausgrid has played a central role in the development of the Hunter–Central Coast REZ. According to Jarratt, REZs will be critical in supplying the heightened power needs of commercial and industrial sites such as manufacturing plants and data centres.

“As traditional industries increasingly electrify and data-centre installations increase, demand will push higher and higher,” he said. “This is where the Hunter–Central Coast REZ will come into its own, providing muchneeded resources while leveraging existing infrastructure.”

Stage one of the Hunter–Central Coast REZ project was completed

by Ausgrid in May, unlocking 350 megawatts of extra capacity. This saw fibre optic communications installed to link the Mitchell Line switching station with the Muswellbrook switching station and bulk supply point.

Once complete in 2028, the Hunter–Central Coast REZ will deliver 1 gigawatt of extra capacity. It represents

the first renewable energy zone in Australia to augment an existing distribution network – a cheaper and faster model than other REZs relying on new transmission infrastructure.

NSW is also developing the South-West, Central–West Orana, Illawarra and New England REZs. Six renewable energy zones have been determined in Victoria, while Queensland is advancing 12 REZs. Tasmania is exploring one REZ in the state’s north-west.

Community batteries

Years before the Cheaper Home Batteries scheme brought energy storage to a new crop of Australian households, Ausgrid was installing community batteries to benefit NSW consumers of all living arrangements – including renters and apartment dwellers.

Starting with the Beacon Hill battery in 2021, Ausgrid has installed 17 community batteries across its network area, with around 250,000 customers who live nearby able to save $200 a year through the Energy Storage as a Service program.

“Energy Storage as a Service helps people who can’t install their own battery to access the benefits of local

storage,” Jarratt said. “The community battery is charged by excess rooftop solar throughout the day and then discharged to help consumers save on their bill. “$200 is about 10 per cent of the average annual DMO (Default Market Offer) bill in our network, so it’s no small saving.”

Community batteries also help manage voltage, reduce pressure on the distribution network and support reliable supply – sometimes more cheaply than new poles and wires, which keeps costs down for everyone.

When the network doesn’t need them, the community batteries work in the wholesale market instead, helping smooth out price spikes.

Ausgrid plans to install 46 community batteries all up over the next two years, with most of these to be built on brownfield land.

The DNSP is also advancing its Community Power Network (CPN) trial, receiving a sandbox waiver from the Australian Energy Regulator to do so.

This is helping more people access the benefits of rooftop solar.

“Spare roof space in the neighbourhood – warehouses, local government buildings, etc. – means more potential to generate power, According to Ausgrid, spare roof space in the neighbourhood means more potential to generate power.

www.energymagazine.com.au

53

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Ausgrid has installed 17 community batteries across its network area.

store it locally, and then redistribute it to everyone who needs it in the evening peaks,” Jarratt said.

“A critical next phase of the transition is: how do we bring more people along and give everyone the benefit of access to solar, batteries and EVs? The CPN trial embodies this mission.”

The CPN pilot is expected to generate $28.3 million in benefits over three years, which will be shared with local solar generators and customers in the trial catchment areas.

What’s next?

While large-scale transmission and generation infrastructure remain central to Australia’s energy transition from the top down, distribution networks provide critical system support from the bottom up, empowering consumers and small businesses along the way.

Earthworks progress at Ausgrid’s Antiene substation in Muswellbrook for the Hunter–Central Coast renewable energy zone.

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When asked what he thought Australia’s distribution networks would look like in 2030, Jarratt said batteries are only trending in one direction.

“Over the next four years or so, many more batteries will be deployed across Australia, further unlocking a faster, lower‑cost, fairer transition for consumers,” he said.

“You’ll have batteries in the home, in distribution networks such as our community batteries, and then grid‑scale batteries, all playing their role in balancing the grid and storing excess power.

“Historically, distribution networks just moved power over distance – from A to B. With batteries, we’re now moving it over distance and time: from midday to early evening, and from one customer to another in a neighbourhood.

“This will see time shifting become a powerful tool in regulating both the grid and wholesale electricity prices.”

To explain just how commonplace batteries could become, Jarratt reached for a familiar household technology.

“I think of batteries as a bit like fridges,” he said. “After being invented in the late 1800s, fridges were initially used by commercial businesses and wealthy homeowners. Fast forward over 100 years and refrigeration has become ubiquitous.

“You have a fridge at home, much larger refrigeration systems keeping frozen food cold at the supermarket, and massive cold-storage warehouses sitting behind the food supply chain. They’re all designed to do the same thing, but at very different scales.

“That’s where batteries will go.

You’ll have batteries at home, at the distribution level, like our community batteries, and grid-scale batteries.”

While AEMO now sees distribution networks as a key lever to achieve Australia’s emissionsreduction targets, more can be done to leverage this often-overlooked industry segment.

Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy have made these opportunities clear. The next step is to bring these to life, one renewable energy zone and one community battery at a time.

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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Who will benefit from the SSO?

Parts of the country are now eligible to three free hours of electricity per day.

Will the Solar Sharer Offer resonate with everyday Australians?

Words by Ashley Bradshaw Energy Consumers Australia acting general manager – advocacy and policy

A two-person household could save hundreds of dollars annually through the Solar Sharer Offer. Image: Elias Bitar/ shutterstock.com

T

he Solar Sharer Offer (SSO) – an initiative designed to help consumers harness Australia’s abundant solar energy and possibly lower their bills – is now in full swing.

Launched on July 1 and hailed by Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen as an “uniquely Australian electricity offer”, the scheme aims to spread the benefits of the clean energy transition.

It requires participating retailers to offer up to 24kWh of free electricity to opt-in customers in the middle of the day, capitalising on our often-plentiful solar generation. The program is open to households and apartments across NSW, south-east Queensland, and South Australia – with or without solar panels – provided they have a smart meter.

While the SSO is new regulation, retail plans offering free power during the day isn’t entirely new. Retailers like OVO Energy, GloBird, and Origin have offered similar midday free-energy windows in recent years.

Still, the Federal Government estimates a typical two-person household could save hundreds of dollars annually by shifting power-hungry appliances, like washing machines and dishwashers, into this window.

With a similar program launching in Victoria on October 1, now is an opportune time to examine the SSO’s potential and its limitations.

As the independent national voice for consumers, Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) welcomes the SSO’s ambition. Helping households cut costs, harness excess renewable generation, and exercise greater control over their energy usage is commendable.

However, the SSO is not a silver bullet.

ECA’s analysis indicates that while the SSO offers value to households capable

of shifting their usage, those who can’t may be better off on a standard flat-rate plan. Retailers must communicate this transparently; consumers shouldn’t sign up expecting automatic savings only to see their bills rise.

Our May 2026 research revealed that less than a third of eligible Australians were aware of the SSO, but roughly half expressed interest in joining once informed. Low awareness presents a hurdle, but the underlying appetite is clear.

Furthermore, consumer energy literacy remains generally low.

Expecting busy Australians to understand complex usage patterns and shifting their load is unrealistic for many. Our research has found that almost 6 in 10 Australians want a basic,

ECA acting general manager – advocacy and policy Ashley Bradshaw.

Image: Energy Consumers Australia

passive relationship with their energy provider – they just want a fair price and reliable service.

Our research has also found one in 10 Australians households never review their power plan, and a quarter say they review their power plan less than once a year. For those consumers who review their plans less than annually, 30 per cent state it is too hard to compare plans, 26 per cent believe switching is not worth the effort and 20 per cent say it takes too much time.

For the SSO to build lasting trust and deliver real value, policymakers and retailers must explicitly clarify who benefits and how, and tailor this communication to meet the needs of customers.

Ultimately, the SSO is a positive step forward, but it cannot stand alone. We need governments to complement it with broader structural reforms including national minimum energy efficiency standards for renters, alongside targeted support for renters, apartment dwellers and low-income households to electrify.

We also need a national consumer duty that requires energy companies to demonstrate they are acting in the interests of consumers and promoting good outcomes for customers. www.energymagazine.com.au

57

INDUSTRY MOVEMENTS

People on the move Showcasing the recent personnel changes in the energy sector, including the AEMC, Western Power, Transgrid and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Australian Energy Market Commission

Gair Landsborough has been appointed as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Western Power.

Landsborough has been an executive and part of the senior leadership team at Western Power for more than 20 years.

The company announced the appointment in July and said his leadership had been foundational in achieving significant milestones for the network including the SWIS Transmission Plan and Clean Energy Link projects. These projects have been a key part of Western Australia’s transition to a clean energy future and the WA Government’s goal to reach net zero by 2050.

Landsborough said he had an unwavering commitment to safety and ensuring employees have the support and resources needed.

Transgrid

Murray Chandler has been appointed as general manager, asset management – network division at Transgrid.

Chandler brings deep electricity network experience, thoughtful judgement, and a reputation built over many years in asset strategy and performance.

Business consulting services Dohnt & Co announced the appointment and said it followed a comprehensive

executive search across Australia and selected international markets, reflecting the importance of asset management in supporting the reliability, resilience, and future development of Australia’s electricity transmission network.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has appointed current chief investment officer, Paul McCartney, as its new CEO, effective September 18.

McCartney will replace Ian Learmonth, who has held the role since 2017 and will support the transition.

During Learmonth’s tenure, the CEFC increased its available capital from $10 billion to more than $33 billion and surpassed $24 billion in lifetime investment commitments across around 430 transactions, with a combined project value of more than $98 billion as of March 31, 2026.

The CEFC also established new funding programs covering household energy upgrades, grid modernisation, power technology and hydrogen, while expanding its investment activities across climate technology, natural capital and alternative fuels.

McCartney has more than 12 years’ experience with the CEFC and more than 35 years’ experience in finance, investment and commercial leadership.

Image: Slava/stock.adobe.com

Hydro Tasmania executive general manager, strategy and commercial, Erin van Maanen, has been appointed to the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) Reliability Panel. The AEMC panel has a role to monitor, review and report on the reliability, security and safety of the National Electricity Market and has representatives across consumers, generators, and innovation and emerging technologies. Erin van Maanen took up the role as the representative for generators from July 1.

Van Maanen has 20 years’ experience across renewable generation, wholesale markets, corporate finance and energy infrastructure and will provide valuable insight as the panel continues its work on reliability and power system security.

The panel will continue to monitor and report on power system reliability, security and safety, provide expert advice to the AEMC on system reliability and security matters and determine standards and guidelines used by AEMO and market participants. It will also conduct market reviews and setting key market parameters such as the market price cap.

Western Power

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