Aust solar-sharing tech wins top design prize

SolShare, a rooftop solar technology developed by Melbourne company Allume Energy, has won the 2026 Australian Good Design Award of the Year.

The technology enables apartment residents to access solar energy from a shared rooftop system, dynamically directing electricity to apartments according to their immediate energy needs.

In use at more than 10,000 apartments across three continents, SolShare has delivered 23 GWh of solar energy globally and helped residents save an average of 30 to 40% on their electricity bills.

In addition to the top gong, the innovative technology also received the Australian Good Design Award for Sustainability at the 2026 Awards.

“Millions of people live in apartments, and many have had limited access to the benefits of rooftop solar,” said Good Design Australia Chair Dr Brandon Gien.

“SolShare is a clever Australian design innovation that addresses that problem in a practical way, and it is already delivering benefits at significant scale.”

Established in 1958, the Australian Good Design Awards now encompass 13 design disciplines and more than 30 categories, including Built Environment, Concept Design, Engineering Design and Policy Design, among others.

Other winners included a beehive-handling device from Australian company Flow Hive (Best in Discipline Award for Engineering Design) and Taiwanese designer Liu Chia-Yi’s SoilRevive, an AI-powered bioremediation station designed to treat farmland contaminated by heavy metals (Best in Discipline Award for Concept Design).

“The quality of this year’s Award winners is exceptional,” Gien said.

“We are seeing designers, engineers and architects working in energy, health care, biodiversity, artificial intelligence, climate resilience, public policy and helping address some very complex social, environmental and commercial challenges.”

Image courtesy of Allume Energy.