AI will open the door to photovoltaics in apartment blocks. Technology from Australia as an opportunity also for Poland

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Scientists from the University of New South Wales in Canberra, in cooperation with technology companies Voltval and JT Solar Technology, have launched a pilot project for an intelligent energy‑management system. The AI‑powered system is set to revolutionize the photovoltaic and energy‑storage market in multi‑family buildings, which until now have lagged behind single‑family homes.

AI as the digital brain of a shared energy storage system

The foundation of the project is a hardware platform called the Modular Power Portal System, created by Voltval and JT Solar. It connects a rooftop photovoltaic installation with a single, shared energy storage system for the entire block or apartment building. The system is installed in the building’s common areas and works with the existing wiring.

The role of UNSW scientists is to develop an advanced AI‑based software layer. The AI algorithms will be responsible for:

  • Forecasting production and demand – analyzing weather conditions and residents’ historical habits to predict how much energy the roof will generate and how much the apartments will consume.
  • Real‑time resource coordination – dynamically and fairly distributing solar energy among individual apartments in the community.
  • Balancing energy flows – optimally managing the charging and discharging of the shared battery.

Researchers from UNSW Canberra – Dr. Ripon Chakrabortty and Prof. Huadong Mo – estimate that implementing intelligent management will increase on‑site consumption of green energy and reduce building operating costs by up to 30%. The project has received support from the federal government, which awarded a grant of 1.2 million Australian dollars (approx. 828,000 USD) under the TRaCE program.

Why apartment blocks have been losing the race for solar energy

In Australia, more than 2.5 million people live in apartment buildings. In New South Wales, where one in five households is an apartment, only 3.5% of residents have access to rooftop solar energy. By contrast, in the single‑family home segment, Australia is a global leader in photovoltaics.

The main barriers that have so far hindered the development of renewable energy in cities include:

  • complex ownership structures within housing communities,
  • outdated metering infrastructure preventing fair distribution of electricity,
  • technical limitations – these buildings were not designed with distributed energy systems in mind.

Collective prosumers are waiting for technological support

The challenges faced by Australians are well known in Central Europe as well. In Poland, the micro‑prosumer sector has been dominated by single‑family homeowners. Residents of Polish apartment blocks and tenement houses encounter identical legal, architectural, and grid‑related barriers.

Although Poland has introduced the concept of a “collective prosumer” (allowing shares in a single installation to be assigned to multiple apartments), the solution remains unpopular. The main obstacle is the lack of advanced systems for real‑time energy management and settlement. Implementing AI‑based technology – such as the Australian MPPS – could become the missing link for Polish housing cooperatives and communities, enabling automatic and fair energy balancing without the need for costly meter replacement for every resident.

Global potential of the urban pilot project

The project will undergo real‑world testing at multiple commercial and residential locations across Sydney. The collected data is expected to confirm the system’s stability and cost‑effectiveness before large‑scale deployment.

As Jason Jiangang Xiao, director of JT Solar Technology, notes, the barriers that have so far blocked the development of clean energy in multi‑family buildings in Sydney are exactly the same in densely populated metropolitan areas around the world. The success of the Australian pilot could therefore become a ready‑made blueprint for the energy transformation of cities across the globe.

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