The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) passed nine governance changes at an extraordinary general meeting held on 23 July in Sydney. [ + ]

The global optical networking (ON) equipment market is expected to reach US$20 billion by 2017, according to new research from Ovum. [ + ]

REFUsol, a manufacturer of solar inverters, is showcasing its 5, 10 and 20 kW inverters and innovative accessories for monitoring PV systems at Clean Energy Council Week in Sydney from 26-28 July 2012. [ + ]

Austest Laboratories has been awarded the contract for check testing swimming pool pumps by the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. [ + ]

ABB Australia has announced that the University of Queensland entry was the winner of its Smart Grid City Model competition for university engineering students, launched earlier this year. [ + ]

Schneider Electric has identified the renewable energy market as a key growth opportunity and will increase its business focus in the Australian commercial, residential and solar farm markets. [ + ]

Nutanix, said to be the first company to offer a radically simple compute and storage building block for virtualising data centres without the need for shared storage, has announced it has achieved record growth across US federal agencies for its Complete Cluster SAN-free data centre. [ + ]

The energy and telecom cables and systems company Prysmian Group has supplied approximately 350 km of high-tech, fire-resistant cables for power distribution within the recently inaugurated Shard skyscraper, the tallest building in London and Western Europe. [ + ]

Ritter Group USA and Vanir Energy have been jointly awarded the inaugural Intersolar Award for Best Practice Solar Project at the Intersolar North America conference. [ + ]

The new Kilsyth South McDonald’s has been awarded a 4 Star Green Star - Custom Design rating for developing a new benchmark for the design of environmentally sustainable restaurants. [ + ]

In-fighting between the Victorian and National branches of the ETU continues, with the CEPU calling Dean Mighell’s statements about foreign workers “just plain wrong”. [ + ]

The National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) has appointed Oliver Judd as the Executive Director of NECA’s NSW and ACT chapters. [ + ]

Australian-listed lighting company Gerard Lighting Group has entered into a scheme implementation agreement (SIA) with Champ Private Equity-owned Lighting Group Australia for a cash takeover. Champ has offered cash consideration of $1.05 per share, valuing the company at around $186 m. [ + ]

Consultation on the proposed reform of electrical occupations licensing has commenced and is set to close on 26 August, but may be extended. [ + ]

Seven Victorian electrical and communications contractors were last week recognised at the annual electrical industry Excellence Awards hosted by the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA). [ + ]