A new $4 million UNSW-led project is transforming a hotel into a community power plant, combining solar, battery storage and AI.
A regional hotel in Bowral will become a test site for a new model of community energy, using rooftop solar, battery storage and AI to support the hotel, strengthen local energy resilience and share surplus clean energy with the surrounding community.
Researchers at UNSW have partnered with JT Solar Technology Pty Ltd and hospitality operator The Gibraltar Bowral to pilot a community power plant (CPP), in a $4 million project supported by the Australian government through the Trailblazer for Recycling and Clean Energy (TRaCE) Lab to Market Fund.
Unlike a typical virtual power plant (VPP), which treats each home or business solar and battery array on its own and switches it on and off to chase the best electricity price, the CPP works differently. It balances the interests of the energy user, the battery owner and the grid, turning surplus energy into a shared community resource.
At The Gibraltar Bowral, the hotel's newly installed 290kW rooftop solar (612 panels) and 200kWh battery system, funded by JT Solar Technology, will be paired with further solar expansion and a planned 500kWh community battery. Together, the assets cover the hotel's own energy needs, keep essential loads running during grid disruptions and extreme weather, and share surplus clean energy with nearby homes and businesses.
Coordinating the system in real time is a novel large language model (LLM)-based energy management system, developed by a team of UNSW researchers led by Associate Professor Huadong Mo and Dr Ripon Chakrabortty . The AI model weighs live electricity prices, energy demand, energy grid requirements and each battery's state of charge and health, so short-term savings never come at the cost of long-term battery performance or grid stability.
A new model for community energy
"From an ownership perspective, this is a good example of smart capital allocation by investing in infrastructure that reduces operating costs, improves the resilience and sustainability of the asset, and ultimately benefits both our guests and the local community," said Andrew Lau, Executive General Manager of the Mariposa Group representing the Owners group of The Gibraltar Bowral. "It's the type of practical capex investment we want to continue making across the property."
JT Solar Technology is leading the deployment of the solar technology, community battery and VPP infrastructure, working with installation company Aussie Hybrid Solar (AHS) and technology partners Sungrow and LONGi. The Gibraltar Bowral is contributing its hotel infrastructure and integrating the system into day-to-day operations, while A/Prof. Mo and Dr Chakrabortty bring the AI expertise they built through their earlier TRaCE-supported work on AI-enabled solar and battery storage for apartment buildings.
"We're excited to take what we started with JT Solar Technology in Sydney's apartment complexes into a completely different setting. A regional hotel serving as an energy hub and its surrounding community place very different demands on the grid," said A/Prof. Huadong Mo. "Proving the model can adapt and deliver real impact here is what gives us confidence it can scale well beyond these sites, with real potential for broader domestic and global deployment."
"Every project we do with UNSW sharpens what we've built," said Jason (Jiangang) Xiao, Director of JT Solar Technology. "Taking it from Sydney's apartments into a regional setting like Bowral is exactly the kind of real-world validation that gives us the confidence to scale up the technology."
The project demonstrates how TRaCE helps move promising UNSW research beyond the laboratory and into real-world settings, where it can be tested, refined and prepared for wider commercial adoption.
The site will run its first implementation of the CPP from this month. If successful, the model offers a template other regional communities and hospitality operators could adopt to enable more resilient energy supply and more affordable energy, extending the benefits of UNSW-developed clean energy technology beyond Sydney.
