A peer-reviewed research programme aimed at closing Australia’s solar-to-battery attachment gap is now formally underway, with Regen Power as the industry partner.
Australia leads the world in rooftop solar. The next chapter – getting battery storage right at scale – is now formally backed by a peer-reviewed research programme involving Western Australia’s #1 SunWiz-ranked solar specialist.
We are pleased to announce that Curtin University and Regen Power Pty Ltd have been awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project grant for a three-year programme of work titled AI-Driven Sustainable Battery Adoption: Sizing, Profiling, and Recycling. The project carries a total value of close to $1.93 million and runs from 2026 to 2029.
For Regen Power’s customers, this matters in a very specific way. The research will produce the decision-support tools, sizing models, and lifecycle frameworks that households in Western Australia and across the country need to make confident battery investments – and that the solar industry needs to deliver them.
The Australian battery decision gap
Australia has more than 4.2 million rooftop solar systems installed across homes and small businesses. By comparison, fewer than 400,000 households have paired their solar with a battery. That is a battery attachment rate of well under 10% across the solar-equipped housing stock.
The reason is not a lack of interest. Industry surveys consistently find that household battery awareness and purchase intent are at all-time highs. The reasons households hold back are practical:
- Sizing uncertainty. Households cannot easily work out the right battery size for their actual consumption pattern, household composition, or future needs — an EV, a heat pump, a baby, a home office.
- Operating opacity. Tariff structures, feed-in rates, and rebate eligibility shift frequently, making it difficult to model the financial case with confidence.
- End-of-life uncertainty. Batteries are durable goods with a 10 to 15 year useful life. Households want to know what happens to the battery at the end, whether recycling is real, and what residual value exists.
Closing those three gaps – sizing, operation, and end-of-life – is the focus of the research programme now funded by the ARC.
What the research will build
The Curtin × Regen Power programme is structured around three integrated workstreams, delivered over three years.
1. AI-driven battery sizing
Drawing on Regen Power’s installation history of more than 45,000 systems and Curtin’s applied machine-learning expertise, the team will build a sizing engine that takes a household’s actual consumption profile — not a national average — and matches it to the optimal battery capacity for that household’s circumstances. The model will be validated against real consumption data from Western Australian homes.
2. Smart charging and operation
The second workstream develops reinforcement-learning models that optimise battery charging and discharging in response to live tariffs, weather patterns, household demand, and grid conditions. The goal is to extract maximum economic value for the household while reducing strain on the local distribution network – a benefit both to the consumer and to Western Power’s grid management responsibilities.
3. End-of-life prediction and recycling
The third workstream addresses the long-term piece. Lithium battery recycling is a young but rapidly growing industry in Australia. The research will develop remaining-useful-life prediction models and blockchain-traced recycling pathways, so households can verify that their old battery is being repurposed or recycled responsibly. This component links directly to Australia’s broader product-stewardship obligations under the B-cycle scheme administered by the Battery Stewardship Council.
A defining decade for Australian household batteries
The next decade will be defining for residential battery storage in Australia. The federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which commenced in mid-2025, offers a meaningful upfront discount on residential battery systems and is expected to drive a step-change in uptake. Industry analysts are forecasting battery attachment rates rising substantially from current levels by 2030.
That projected growth carries an obligation. If 1 million Australian households add batteries over the next five years, the questions of how those batteries are sized, operated, and ultimately recycled become matters of national consequence – for grid stability, for consumer welfare, for the integrity of the rebate scheme, and for the credibility of the renewable energy transition itself.
The ARC Linkage scheme exists precisely to support research with this scale of public impact. Linkage Projects are peer-reviewed competitive grants requiring meaningful industry co-investment, designed to ensure the resulting research is rigorous, applied, and translatable. This project sits squarely within that mandate.
What this means for Western Australian households
For Regen Power customers, the practical implications are clear.
Sharper recommendations. The sizing models developed through this research will progressively inform the recommendations Regen Power makes to households evaluating a battery for their home. Rather than relying on rules-of-thumb, customers will benefit from algorithmic recommendations tuned to WA-specific tariff structures, solar irradiance, and consumption patterns.
Better operating performance. As the smart-charging models mature, they can be deployed across Regen Power’s installed base – extracting more value from each kilowatt-hour stored, and improving the payback period of existing installations.
A credible end-of-life story. Customers asking “what happens to my battery in 12 years?” will increasingly be answered with a traceable, science-based recycling pathway, not a marketing brochure.
Independent validation. Because the research is led by Curtin University and peer-reviewed by the Australian Research Council, the findings carry independent academic credibility. This protects customers from vendor-driven claims and gives Western Australian households a transparent evidence base for their decisions.
Why Regen Power was selected as the industry partner
Curtin University evaluated potential industry partners during the application phase. Regen Power was selected on the basis of three factors:
- Scale of installed base. With more than 45,000 solar and battery installations completed across Western Australia since 2003, Regen Power’s dataset offers the depth and diversity that machine-learning models require to generalise well.
- Active consumer-centric R&D culture. Regen Power has consistently invested in research and development, including prior projects on consumer adoption of solar storage and grid-resilient community batteries published in Energy Policy and Renewable Energy.
Field engineering capacity. Regen Power’s licensed electricians, in-house installation teams, and rooftop testing infrastructure mean research findings can be validated in real Western Australian homes – not laboratory simulations.
The team
The project is led by Associate Professor Vidy Potdar (Curtin University, digital platforms and applied AI), with Professor Subramaniam Ananthram (research methodology and stakeholder analysis) and Associate Professor Anton Klarin (innovation and business strategy) as co-investigators. Dr Nikhil Jayaraj, Managing Director of Regen Power and an Adjunct Researcher at Curtin University, serves as the Partner Investigator, bridging the academic and industry workstreams.
Three doctoral students will be recruited to deliver the project’s research outputs, with structured industry placements at Regen Power’s Canning Vale facility forming part of their training pathway.
What happens next
The project commences in the 2026 financial year. Recruitment of the three PhD students and the research assistant is now underway. The first research outputs – focused on household consumption profiling and battery sizing models – are expected in late 2026, with field pilots commencing in 2027.
For Regen Power, the win is more than a research grant. It is formal recognition that the consumer-centric approach we have spent more than two decades building – patient, evidence-led, technically rigorous – is the approach Australia needs to scale battery storage from today’s modest attachment rate to something that genuinely supports the national energy transition.
We will share progress updates as the research milestones are met.
FAQ‘s
Q1. What is an ARC Linkage Project grant?
ARC Linkage Projects are peer-reviewed competitive research grants administered by the Australian Research Council. They fund collaborative research between universities and industry partners on problems of practical and scientific importance, and require meaningful cash and in-kind co-investment from the industry partner alongside the ARC’s contribution.
Q2. How will this research benefit Regen Power customers?
Customers will progressively benefit from sharper, AI-supported recommendations on battery sizing; improved operating performance from existing systems through smart-charging models; and a transparent, science-based end-of-life and recycling pathway. The research outputs will be incorporated into Regen Power’s consultation and design processes over the project’s three-year lifecycle.
Q3. When will the research outputs be available?
The project commences in the 2026 financial year. Early research outputs on household profiling and sizing modelling are expected in late 2026, with field pilots commencing in 2027 and full system integration through 2028 and 2029.
Q4. Is my data being used in this research?
Regen Power contributes de-identified, aggregate datasets to the research under strict privacy protocols approved by Curtin University’s Human Research Ethics Committee. No individually identifiable customer information is shared, and customers can opt out of any aggregated dataset by contacting Regen Power directly.
Q5. How can I learn more about a battery for my own home?
Western Australian households considering a solar-and-battery system can book a no-obligation consultation with a Regen Power adviser at regenpower.com or by phoning our Canning Vale office. Our advisers will assess your roof, consumption pattern, and household profile to recommend a configuration suited to your circumstances.
