Australian clean-tech company Allume has been recognised with a historic double honour at the country's top design awards for its world-first SolShare technology, which is closing the global solar divide between freestanding homes and apartment residents.
On Friday 9 October, Allume’s SolShare was recognised with the top award in the 2026 Australian Good Design Awards, Australia’s longest-running international design awards, for excellence in design, innovation and impact.
At the Good Design Award ceremony at Sydney’s International Convention Centre (ICC) on Friday 9 October, Dr Gien said the Good Design Award of the Year is given to a project that “sets a new benchmark for designing for our planet and for future generations in mind… a game-changing design innovation that will profoundly and positively impact our world in the future.”
In what Dr Brandon Gien, Founder and Chairman of Good Design Australia, described as a first, SolShare was also recognised with the Good Design Award for Sustainability.
Speaking of the Good Design Award jury’s decision to give both the top award and the sustainability award to the same project:
"Each award is an extraordinary distinction in its own right. This year, for the first time in the history of these awards, our jury has selected the same project for these two prestigious accolades. I think this sends an incredibly powerful message that sustainability is no longer something that sits on the sidelines of design; it defines design."
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.
Stella Knorr, Allume’s Chief Product Officer, said:
"For us, SolShare demonstrates that access to clean energy isn't just an environmental issue – it has a very real and immediate human impact. We're opening up rooftop solar to people who have historically been excluded, helping households reduce their energy costs while accelerating the transition to a cleaner future.
SolShare is a powerful example of what good design can achieve when we challenge convention and rethink what's possible. To have that recognised with the two highest honours in Australian design is an extraordinary moment for our team, and for everyone who has helped bring this home-grown innovation to life. And we're only just getting started."
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.
SolShare 2 was developed with Trike, a Melbourne-based product design and engineering studio. Trike’s industrial design and mechanical engineering work spanned the full development cycle – from initial product research through to manufacturing optimisation.
Stella added, of Trike’s contribution:
"Taking a complex hardware product to global markets takes a great team, and Trike was an invaluable part of ours. Their industrial design and mechanical engineering expertise helped us solve complex challenges while keeping user experience and manufacturability front and centre.
Collaborative, practical, and genuinely invested in our success, they quickly became a trusted partner and an invaluable extension of the Allume team. Their contribution was instrumental in turning an ambitious vision into a category-defining product we’re incredibly proud to take to the world."
To date, more than 13,000 apartments across two continents have been connected to rooftop solar using SolShare, contributing 28GWh of clean energy. Annual bill savings start from $381 per unit without a battery and reach up to $756 with one.
In its statement on choosing SolShare for the top honours, the Good Design Awards jury said it was impressed by the technology’s “intelligent real-time demand allocation system and demonstrated impact in making renewable energy accessible to communities historically excluded from rooftop solar benefits.”
"This is true design excellence that will have a profound impact on our transition to a low-carbon future," the jury added.
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 brought 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
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.
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.
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.