Shared solar trailblazer wins federal funding to scale up manufacturing on home soil

Melbourne-based shared solar pioneer Allume Energy has secured $3.8 million through Australia’s Industry Growth Program to drive local manufacturing of its SolShare technology, which helps unlock the potential of solar for apartment residents.

Founded in 2015 with a goal to bring the benefits of solar to apartment residents, Allume Energy’s SolShare smart hardware technology enables a single rooftop solar system to be shared amongst an apartment block’s residents.

Physically splitting the energy from a single rooftop solar system and dividing it between multiple dwellings, SolShare utilises a dynamic sharing algorithm to share the energy throughout the building. Specifically, the SolShare unit – which can be paired with any solar system – can share out an equal share of power, or varying allocations depending on each apartment’s size, and also share power out to common areas.

The SolShare software also ensures that solar energy consumption is maximised and that as little as possible is fed back into the grid.

According to data from Allume’s monitoring portal, SolCentre, reveals that apartment residents are reducing grid electricity consumption by as much as 60 per cent – significantly higher than the reduction achieved by an individual solar system.

Allume Energy says that its SolShare technology is already providing over 4,000 apartments with solar power around the globe.

With increasing demand for Allume’s technology, the company is getting ready to scale up its manufacturing for both the domestic and export markets.

The $3.8 million provided from the federal Industry Growth Program (IGP) was announced on Wednesday by Ed Husic MP, the federal member for Chifley and minister for industry and science, and will be used to drive the expansion of the company’s local manufacturing.

“We developed SolShare here in Melbourne and now export this Australian-made innovation to three continents,” said Cameron Knox, chief executive and co-founder at Allume Energy.

“With demand soaring, this funding will allow us to rapidly scale up manufacturing at our Dandenong facility, in partnership with SRX Global.”