Australia is at a pivotal moment in its energy and digital transformation. The energy transition is driving electricity demand growth through electrification and unprecedented levels of investment in renewable generation.

Australia is world-leading in solar adoption, with one in 3 homes equipped with a rooftop solar system. Ongoing volatility in fuel and energy prices is prompting Australian households to rethink how they power their homes and vehicles, with solar emerging as a way to buffer against rising costs.

Rooftop solar in Australia provides the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable domestic energy in history.

The dynamics that dictate how the price of electricity is set in Australia have been transformed in the last year, not by policy, but by the unusual characteristics of batteries. Unlike any generator before it, batteries are capable of playing both sides of the price-setting equation: supply and demand. Newly compiled data reveals the extent to which the National Electricity Market’s price-setting agenda has been utterly reconfigured.

Australia’s residential solar market continues to expand at pace, supported by high household adoption and growing integration of battery storage systems. The latest data shows approximately 217,000 new rooftop solar systems have been installed over the past 12 months with an estimated 42% of Australian homes now fitted with solar. The country maintains its position as the No.1 globally ranked market for rooftop solar adoption, with an average residential system size of 6.6 kW.

The first project funded under Stream A of ARENA’s regional microgrid program has been awarded $3 million toward an overall $15 million cost to build a 7 MWp solar and 5 MW / 10 MWh battery storage system to island a New South Wales’ community’s energy security in the event of transmission failure.

Grok Ventures has provided project-level financing as the sole external investor on a US-based 5 GWh thermal energy storage system providing 50 MW of round-the-clock energy through an offtake agreement with biofuels giant, POET.

Sydney-based startup Diagno has secured the support of Formbay to help scale up the rollout of its cloud-based platform used to monitor, diagnose, and optimise solar and battery energy storage systems.

Edify Energy says it has reached financial close on its neighbouring Smoky Creek and Guthrie’s Gap projects in Queensland, the largest solar and battery hybrid projects under construction in Australia.

Swedish renewables developer OX2 has begun building a 135 MW solar farm and a 100 MW battery energy storage system at the site of an old coal mine in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Renewables developer and electricity retailer Flow Power has added almost 20 MW of new solar and 45 MWh of battery energy storage to its operational portfolio with the commissioning of three projects in South Australia.

Australia is in the grip of a consumer-led energy storage boom with new figures showing more than 400,000 batteries representing 11.2 GWh of storage capacity have been installed nationwide in the past 10 months.

Manufacturing major Trinasolar has signed a supply agreement with Solar Juice that has the potential to deliver 10% of Australia’s annual rooftop PV installation volume over the next three years.

Danish renewables developer European Energy says the first of almost 200,000 PV modules have been installed at the 100 MW Winton North solar plant being constructed in northeast Victoria with the project on track to begin operations next year.

A machine-learning model uses cloud type and cloud cover to predict rapid changes in surface solar irradiance, including short-term “ramp” events that affect grid stability. When tested across 15 global sites, it showed strong generalisability, with most locations matching or exceeding the original model’s predictive performance, though extreme climates performed less consistently.

Researchers from University of New South Wales and Jolywood found that corrosion-induced degradation in TOPCon solar cells is primarily governed by glass frit chemistry in low-aluminum silver metallization. Their findings show that barium-zinc-modified frits significantly improve resistance to acetic-acid and damp-heat stress, enabling more stable silver-silicon interfaces and reduced module-level power loss.

Australian battery technology developer Li-S Energy has secured key approvals to airfreight prototype lithium-sulfur cells from Australia to the United States – opening a direct pathway into the world’s largest defence market.

The 2 GWh Tomago battery energy storage system, and a 128 MWh virtual power plant have successfully secured tenders through the NSW Roadmap Tender 7 for Firming Infrastructure.

As energy security continues to dominate headlines, Australia is quietly setting records for renewable energy generation.

The Solomon Islands and Asian Development Bank have signed an agreement to develop the country’s first large-scale solar project as Pacific energy ministers convene in Papua New Guinea calling for an accelerated renewable energy transition in Oceania.

Australian battery technology startup Voltavate will build a new base in Victoria to advance its novel approach to battery manufacturing and accelerate the transition from laboratory development to real-world production.

The proposed inverted perovskite solar cell design reduces band misalignment and electron accumulation, suppressing recombination losses and enabling high efficiency in both small-area devices and scalable modules.

The German manufacturer launched two mounting systems for utility-scale solar projects and small- and medium-scale installations, respectively. Both are designed to streamline installation with simplified components and modular layouts.

The Austrian manufacturer said its new glass-glass module features 108 back-contact TOPCon half-cells and a power conversion efficiency of 23.52%.

Anker Solix has launched a residential energy storage solution featuring a 7 kWh modular battery with 5 kW bidirectional inverter.

Solar module manufacturer and polysilicon producer GCL Technology is expanding into lithium-ion battery storage based on LFP materials as part of a shift toward a “multi-product” new energy platform.

Livium has completed a battery recycling project for Synergy’s Alkimos Beach community battery energy storage system in Western Australia, processed through a domestic end-to-end recycling pathway.

Genex has announced plans to reconfigure the first stage of its 2.5 GW Bulli Creek multi-stage development in Queensland, from a 775 MW solar farm to 300 MW, adding a 425 MW / 1,700 MWh battery energy storage system.

Maintaining grid stability becomes more challenging as the share of intermittent renewables grows in the electricity generation mix, but system resilience is essential to continued solar deployment. Grid-forming inverters offer a solution, and their capabilities are increasingly being tested and relied upon in key energy markets globally.

Hong Kong-headquartered private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners has joined forces with Australian renewables developer Climate Capital as it seeks to advance an estimated $200 million pipeline of solar and storage projects.