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Australian clean-tech company Allume has added the country's top design honour to what has already been a stand-out year for the Melbourne-founded start-up working to close the global solar divide.
Allume’s SolShare has been recognised in the 2026 Australian Good Design Awards, Australia’s longest-running international design awards, for excellence in design, innovation and impact.
Despite over 2.5 million Aussies living in apartments and units, SolShare is the world’s first and only technology to remove the technical and ownership barriers that have long kept many residents from accessing cheaper, cleaner energy. SolShare works ‘behind the meter’ to enable multiple apartment residents in a building to fairly share a single rooftop solar system, providing a fair, efficient, cost-effective and scalable solution for apartment households while supporting integration with batteries and smarter grids of the future. In doing so, it has transformed a previously inaccessible population segment - apartment residents - into a cornerstone of the clean energy transition.
SolShare received the prestigious 2026 Australian Good Design Award Best in Class in the Product Design Hardware and Building category.
The Good Design Award Jury said:
“The Jury recognises SolShare as an important innovation that addresses a significant gap in the clean energy transition by enabling apartment residents to access shared rooftop solar. The solution is commended for its non-invasive, scalable approach that has already connected over 13,000 apartments across three continents, delivering meaningful bill savings of 30-40% and contributing 28GWh of clean energy to date.
The Jury was impressed by the intelligent real-time demand allocation system and the product's demonstrated impact in making renewable energy accessible to communities historically excluded from rooftop solar benefits, while supporting a potential 500-million-tonne annual CO₂ abatement opportunity globally. This is true design excellence that will have a profound impact on our transition to a low-carbon future – well done.”
Stella Knorr, Allume’s Chief Product Officer, said:
“Closing the solar divide between freestanding home and apartment residents has been our goal from day one, so it’s fantastic to see the team’s work and the impact this home-grown Aussie innovation is now having worldwide recognised in this way. Our design approach is a big part of what’s allowed us to reach thousands more apartment residents and renters to date, and we’re expecting a significant ramp-up in the number of apartment residents SolShare is helping to save in the years to come.”
The win follows this year's launch of SolShare 2, a redesign of Allume’s original SolShare tech released in 2019 that increases SolShare’s energy capacity by 36% and makes it possible for apartment residents to share an optimised battery as well as rooftop solar. Part-funded by a $3.8 million Industry Growth Program grant from the federal government, SolShare 2 both increases individual residents’ annual savings potential to up to $756, while halving assembly times at the Dandenong plant to help meet surging Aussie and global demand.
Established in 1958, the Australian Good Design Awards are Australia’s longest-running international design awards and one of the world’s most respected design recognition programs. This year’s Awards are presented under the theme Design that Leads - celebrating the critical role of design in navigating complexity, driving innovation and creating positive change.
The Awards recognise excellence from around the world across 13 overarching design disciplines and more than 30 categories. Every project is evaluated by an independent Jury of more than 100 Australian and international design experts against three core criteria: Good Design, Design Innovation and Design Impact.
The 2026 Australian Good Design Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday 9 October at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney, bringing together more than 1,000 guests from across design, architecture, engineering, business, government and the wider creative industries.
“Design is an important economic and social capability. It influences the products we create, the services we rely on, the policies we develop and the way organisations respond to complex problems,” Ms Wye said.
“This year’s Award winners are addressing energy costs, healthcare, environmental degradation, artificial intelligence, disaster preparedness, accessibility and community wellbeing.
“Australia has an extraordinary design community and an opportunity to use that capability to strengthen our economy, improve lives and build industries that can compete internationally.”
View all 2025 award-winning projects
About Allume
Founded in Melbourne, and with a presence in the UK since 2021, Allume Energy’s vision is a world where everyone can access clean, affordable energy from the sun. Allume launched SolShare in 2019, the world’s first and only technology that fairly shares solar energy from a single rooftop array across multiple apartments in the same building, removing the need for a separate system per home. SolShare, which is designed and manufactured in Australia, has delivered the benefits of solar to over 13,000 apartments across two continents, supported by SolCentre, Allume’s monitoring platform that gives a single view of every connected home.
About the Australian Good Design Awards
Established in 1958 under the auspices of the Industrial Design Council of Australia, the Australian Good Design Awards are Australia’s longest-running international design awards program and have recognised excellence in design and innovation for more than six decades.
The Awards span 13 overarching design disciplines and more than 30 categories, encompassing Built Environment, Communication Design, Concept Design, Digital Design, Design Research, Design Strategy, Engineering Design, Fashion and Textiles, Next Gen, Policy Design, Product Design, Service Design and Social Impact.
About Good Design Australia
Good Design Australia is an international design promotion organisation responsible for managing the annual Australian Good Design Awards and other design programs, events and initiatives.
Its history dates to the establishment of the Industrial Design Council of Australia in 1958, which was funded by the Commonwealth Government and based on the UK Design Council model.
Good Design Australia promotes the importance and value of design to business, industry, government and the broader community.
As a Certified B Corp in the design industry, Good Design Australia is counted among businesses that are leading a global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.