Some of you will be aware of — or be users of — Pylon’s solar design and quoting tool: Pylon Observer. This year, the company announced an important new tool as part of Observer – remote solar shading analysis. [Read more…]

Tesla’s solar tiles are finally coming to Australia. You won’t believe what Elon Musk has promised the first thousand buyers… Note: There are no Tesla Tile installs in Australia at the moment, and this picture is of Tractile Solar Tiles in Marino, SA.

Note: This post was published on April the first 2021

When Elon Musk launched Tesla Solar Roof Tiles four and a half years ago, there was only one question his Australian fans were desperate to know: [Read more…]

A properly configured Catch Solar Relay can help increase your solar energy self-consumption and individually make a small contribution towards grid stability.

Australian solar owners: you now have a new option to put your self-consumption on autopilot while helping both stabilise the grid and enabling more of your neighbours to install solar power systems. [Read more…]

Maverick electricity retailer Amber Electric can automatically switch on your appliances when wholesale electricity prices are low or negative.

Years ago when people first started talking about exposing consumers to the wholesale electricity price, I thought it was a bad idea as I felt most households weren’t up to the challenge of managing the risk of price spikes. [Read more…]

The famous, termite-proof South Australian Stobie Pole that holds SA’s distribution network off the ground.

The most interesting presentation at this year’s Smart Energy virtual conference was only 9 minutes long and by Future Networks engineer, Cathryn McDonald.  [Read more…]

The Catch Solar Relay is a cheap, simple & smart way to improve your solar self-consumption.

Update: See our 2024 review of the Catch Solar Relay’s new features here.

As we approach the final quarter of 2020 even COVID can’t stop Australians installing more solar than ever before.

And with so much solar electricity being generated in the middle of the day, the value of energy between 10 am and 3 pm is falling. [Read more…]

Thought a grad course in Energy Systems Modelling would cost thousands? Thanks to COVID you can do a full graduate course for free online.

Worried about how a renewable-powered world keeps the lights on when “the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow”? Interested in energy systems modelling? [Read more…]

To integrate solar power into the grid more efficiently, the grid operators need to know what’s happening with your solar system. That means looking behind your meter.

With 9GW of solar PV installed, Australia’s enthusiastic embrace of household renewables is starting to bump into system capacity issues. As I wrote last week discussing the advent of the two-sided market, the time is coming where the energy sector will need to be able to reach behind the meter and manage the consumer-side resources such as rooftop generated solar electricity. [Read more…]

Copper filled grooves in a piece of ancient Egyptian obsidian. (Image: The Irish Times)

A set of papers published in the International Journal of Antiquity last month has revealed ancient Egyptians may have had access to a technology that, in our modern world, has only taken off over the last few decades.  [Read more…]

This was our cartoon from way back in 2016 when Tesla originally launched their solar roof tiles. Three years later it may actually be ready, rebranded as the “Tesla Solarglass Roof”.

Persistence has paid off for Tesla, which surprised finance markets with a US$143 million GAAP profit for Q3 2019, on the back of its long-promised and finally-delivered production ramp-up. [Read more…]