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Melbourne, Australia - As the last of the energy bill rebates wind back, an Australian technology already saving apartment residents an average of $381 a year is launching with a federally-funded upgrade that enables both solar and battery optimisation – pushing annual energy savings past $750.
Released today, SolShare 2 unlocks shared solar and batteries for apartment residents for the first time – enabling an additional cost-saving benefit previously reserved for freestanding homes. Coupled with a 36% increase in energy-sharing capacity over SolShare 1, this new battery-sharing functionality allows residents, including renters, to use their rooftop solar to offset grid energy consumption after sundown and, in the coming year, sell excess power back to the grid at peak times.
With a battery, Allume forecasts that annual savings potential could rise due to the ability to offset as much as 80% of a typical apartment resident’s energy usage from the grid.
Built in Melbourne, SolShare has already enabled solar for over 11,000 apartments worldwide. Australian uptake of the technology is forecast to grow by a further 4,300 apartments by mid 2027, for a total of over 11,000 units nationally, tapping into rooftop solar and, for many, a battery too.
"From day one, we've been focused on closing the solar gap between apartment residents and homeowners. With energy bills where they are right now, that gap isn't just about fairness – it's about whether people can afford to heat their homes this winter. SolShare 2 takes that further, letting apartment buildings participate in the energy market in ways they never could before."
– Cameron Knox | Allume Co-founder & CEO
Apartment residents make up one in five NSW homes, yet just 3.5% of NSW apartments have solar, compared with more than 30% of houses. Residents, including renters, have also been locked out of taking advantage of batteries: a cost-saving benefit that's become increasingly popular among owners of freestanding homes with the introduction of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.
Over the last year, access to solar for apartments has started to change – and fast. So too are people's energy bills. Off the back of a year-on-year doubling of SolShare’s install rate worldwide, a total of 2,200 NSW apartments are now taking advantage of SolShare 1. Of these, 59% of all installations in the state have occurred in the last year.
After working with his neighbours to get a SolShare 1 system installed in his apartment building last November, Waverton resident Edmond Yan saw his bill drop by $270 over six months compared to the same period the year before. His grid energy usage also fell by 38%. The bill savings do not account for earnings from any excess solar fed back into the grid.
"We decided to get solar because residents and the owners could really see the benefit from a cost-savings perspective on their energy bill. Without SolShare, the other options did not really look viable for our building and as a result, my energy bill has gone down, even without a battery."
– Ed Yan | SolShare customer, NSW
His 12-unit apartment building had $25,627 knocked off the cost of their installation thanks to the NSW Solar for Apartment Residents (SOAR) program, plus an additional $5,000 rebate from North Sydney Council.
The SOAR program has distributed $7.5 million in funding to 168 recipients to date, with over 91% of its NSW recipients opting to install SolShare to make sure their solar system is distributing energy equitably between residents.
This year, Allume is forecasting that installations of its solar-sharing technology in apartment buildings will reach 20,000 worldwide. By reducing assembly times at Allume's Dandenong production facility, SolShare 2 is expected to deliver a step change in scalability, making it easier for the Victorian company to meet this growing global appetite.
Allume's $10.8 million capital raise last year, led by European energy giant E.ON, has driven rapid expansion into UK social housing in particular, where 4,101 apartments are now connected to SolShare. Globally, SolShare has now delivered around 22 gigawatt-hours of solar energy to apartment residents to date.
About Allume
Founded in Melbourne, VIC, in 2015, Allume’s vision is a world where everyone can access clean and affordable energy from the sun. To pursue that vision, Allume developed a world-first technology, SolShare, which enables fair sharing of solar energy from a single rooftop solar PV system & battery between multiple dwellings within the same building.
Allume has been featured in The Age, The Australian Financial Review, and Forbes.