Published

2 years ago

May 23, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Monitoring Solutions for Aging Wind Turbines: eologix-Ping

Allen Hall and Joel Saxum interview Matthew Stead, co-founder of eologix-Ping, about the company’s growth, industry challenges, and their innovative sensing solutions for aging wind fleets. They discuss the benefits of eologix-Ping’s acoustic sensing, lightning detection, and blade monitoring technologies.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com
Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
Intelstor – https://www.intelstor.com

Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, along with co host Joel Saxun. We are in Minneapolis for the 2024 American Clean Power with the co founder of eologix-Ping, Matthew Stead.

Matthew Stead: Thank you, Allen.

Allen Hall: Matthew, welcome back.

Matthew Stead: Thank you. It’s great to be here. I actually was here with you a year ago.

Allen Hall: Oh, that’s right. In New Orleans. Yeah. So it has been a year since the merger of eologix and Ping. So a lot has happened over that time year’s time span?

Matthew Stead: Absolutely.

Allen Hall: Uh, we should touch upon that. I want, first want to get your opinion of what this convention has been relative to New Orleans last year, what your thoughts were, what the interfaces have been with your customers.

What’d you think?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think industry’s growing, fleets getting older, design issues, Every month, every six months, every twelve months, there’s more and more challenges we’re seeing, and I think that was reflected in the discussions we had here.

Joel Saxum: I think you’re getting that, it’s just being communicated, right?

Yeah. Hey, we have this problem, what can you do to fix it? I sat with someone last night at dinner and they literally just said I’ve got this. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to do that. Who can do that? I said nobody can do all three, but this company can do this and this. I said, Pingmealogic can monitor for this and we can, you can do this for this.

And there’s some gearbox stuff for that. So people are looking for solutions for their plaguing problems. And I think that is exactly what you said as the fleet ages, right? It was before everybody was just like trying to catch up. And now you’re getting engineers into places. We do talk to a lot of people that are hiring engineers.

Hey, this person’s brand new to our team. Whether it’s from the insurance side, asset owner side, even ISPs. I talked to an ISP. Hey, we got a great new blade engineer to help bolster our ability to repair blades. It’s oh, that’s fantastic for you guys as well. So more engineering help. And that’s just giving more bandwidth to the basically the stakeholders in industry to solve these problems.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re all here to help.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. For sure. This is the place for it.

Allen Hall: We have seen a lot of engineers this week with specific problems. Mostly blade problems, occasionally bearing problems, even though it depends on the platform. There’s some platform with a lot of bearing issues at the moment.

And we have seen a narrowing down of the possible solution companies. And that’s what I noticed this week. The number of drone companies has really diminished robot companies way down. It’s around pretty much left, right? Because there’s so dominant in that market space. And then when it comes to acoustic sensing, remote sensing, continuous monitoring, that’s the logic’s ping at the minute because of the, Really gets down to cost, right?

And what the product can do. So you packed a huge amount of information in this little tiny package that doesn’t require any wiring. And that just has opened up the opportunities for eologix-Ping. I think it, there’s, everybody was talking to, what can we do? And when they come to our booth, we say, eologix-Ping has the most cost efficient, readily adaptable, on the go product.

That’s awesome. Just stick it on and go. And which is a game changer, right? So the continuous monitoring systems that we were, we’re seeing a year ago that were these big monster boxes with the wires everywhere.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Allen Hall: They’re essentially gone.

Joel Saxum: They’re for engineering projects. They are. And you’re not going to roll, you’re not going to roll that out.

Fleet wide recalls. Yeah. Yeah. Cause at the end of the day, this is what we need to be able to do. We need to enable the guys in the O and M building to know what they need to do and prioritize. So like the lightning strike. I don’t need to know every bit of metadata about that. I need to know which turbine got hit.

Matthew Stead: Did I get hit? Which one?

Joel Saxum: Go look at it. Yeah. Or is there an issue here? Because at the end of the day, every CMS system tells you at one point in time, go look at the turbine. So if you can do that in the most cost efficient way, that’s the answer.

Allen Hall: Even the number of engineers that were here, when we talked to them, and how many assets do you have, how many turbines do you have?

We have thousands. How many blade engines do you have? Two!

Matthew Stead: Not enough.

Allen Hall: There is no way you’re going to be able to monitor that many turbines without having a tool. Yeah. There’s no way. Too much data. Too much data, not enough simplicity to it, and you can’t quickscan, which is the problem I see. That eologix-Ping is fixed, is the quickscan,

Matthew Stead: What’s the hot list?

What’s the top 10%? What’s the top 20%?

Allen Hall: Yeah, you got to get to that list really quickly, every morning.

Joel Saxum: And you can take a look. And you can scale and install on a wind farm in a day. The way I look at that is I could, if I got my shipment of ping sensors, right? Of the acoustic ones, and I had, here, boys, put this in the back of your truck, and we’ll put this on every tower we have out there.

Okay, they’re done at the end of the day. And all of those turbines are now monitored. Whereas if you have to install, Get up in the blades and this and that. It said the ability to scale up the monitoring effort is not there.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. And that’s where we started. So I think when I founded the business, I didn’t try and design a product and then try and sell it.

I spoke to the customers, what can you afford, what are your challenges, what do you need? And then we designed a product to suit that. And that’s the way it should be, right? It should be. That’s a huge problem.

Joel Saxum: Okay, so this is a conversation I have regularly. I’m a bit plugged in some of the the VC world and the tech world in Houston.

And there’s people that go to these places, Greentown Labs, the ION, that walk in there and just say Hey, wait a minute. Do you have basically a development partner? Have you talked with some, instead of breezing by a bar room conversation of primary market research, are you actually engaged with these clients and solving the specific problems they have?

Otherwise you’re making a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t work. Yeah. It doesn’t work that way.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. So I’m really pleased that you’re relaying what we set out to do. Yes.

Joel Saxum: Yes.

Matthew Stead: Yes. It’s been worth the effort. It’s been worth the effort.

Allen Hall: I took that tour along with Joel. If you’ve been listening to the podcast very long over the last month or so, you’ve heard about our travel log of going through West Texas and up through Oklahoma and looking at all kinds of turbines.

There are problems everywhere. Cranes are out right now fixing blades. There’s a lot of pitch bearing issues. There’s a lot of structural issues inside. And then when we had stopped to talk to the OEM supervisors and managers of those sites, they’re saying, Hey, We have so many problems, we can’t monitor it.

And some of them we just need to monitor. We just going to have to put a monitor on and they’re looking at solutions or trying to figure out how to monitor a hundred turbines that have some sort of internal blade issue that they know of. How are they going to do that? Either you’re going to send a technician around to do that every couple of weeks, which just kills your technician.

They’re already killed. Yeah. Yeah. They’re already stressed. You’re gonna have to bring in some outside crew to go do it. Super expensive. Yeah. Or you’re gonna put some sort of continuous monitoring system in. Now, when we stopped at one of those offices, we said the internal blade monitor From eLogic’s ping is the quick solution because it does so much and everybody is just mind blown.

There’s no wiring. Do you want to describe how that system works?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, so there’s two parts. We have the listening sensor, which has got a lovely windshield, which looks beautifully black. So that’s intelligent listening sensor and now we have the power and comms module and power and comms module power.

but also the lightning detection sensor. So putting them both together. So we’ve got the intelligent listening sensor and the power and comms module, and we just plugged them together. It turns it on and slap it on with the magnets onto the tower.

Allen Hall: And so that’s the internal internally inside the blade, which is where the technicians were going with me that are saying, okay.

Yeah, but I can’t really see in this dark blade. How am I going to monitor it? I’ve seen other systems where I got to put strain gauges on and all this stuff. I got wiring everywhere. And that is, it’s too much. It’s going to take me 10 hours and stop for blade. That’s crazy. The in blade solution just sticks to the closeout panel, right?

Matthew Stead: For the logic spring version of it. So the in, in blade one, we’ve got two parts to it. Once again, the listening sensor, and then we’ve got a kinetic power supply. , that’s it. You plug them together, turns on. It’s got all its comms, that’s it. And it’s all on the closeout panel.

Allen Hall: And that doesn’t even talk to the SCADA system in the tree?

Matthew Stead: No, completely. No it’s a completely separate, completely. Each blade is separately talking through cellular comms back to the cloud. So even each blade doesn’t talk to each other. ’cause there’s no wires between each plate. So each system is one per plate.

Joel Saxum: So you’re solving the cyber security issues there too.

Yeah, because there is none.

There’s no connection

Matthew Stead: to the tower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry it bolts to the close up yeah.

Allen Hall: But we’re talking about a couple of bolts a close up panel versus all kinds of wiring.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah. There’s no way No power coming from the hub, you don’t have to get past the slip ring get past the pitch bearing None of that stuff.

Allen Hall: Yeah, I think that’s gonna be the solution We see across the middle of the United States this summer And as everybody gets used to the fact of we need to go monitor, we need to be spending a little bit of money to go do it. Not a lot of money, but a little bit of money to go do this. The eLogic’s ping is the quick, simple way to get there.

And let’s go outside of the internal inspection, where we’re getting the outside of the blade, things we can visually see. We’ve been using, Weather Guard has been using the eologix-Ping lightning detection system with some of our customers to detect lightning strikes. So they have StrikeTape product on.

Yeah. We want to show them they’re taking strikes and just record and monitor it. Yeah, no damage. We want to show there’s no damage and the key to that system, which is working so well in customer’s love, is the same thing with the internal sensor is, it’s so easy to see it. Yeah.

Yeah. It doesn’t take really any training at all. You just open your laptop, look at the screen, it’ll tell you if it took a strike. It actually sends you an email. Yeah. It says, hey, you’ve been struck. Oh. And the added feature now, the new feature on the lightning side is what?

Matthew Stead: So now we correlate when there’s a lightning event determined from our sensor.

We know the tower’s been struck. Now we correlate Xweatherr data. So Xweather is recording the polarity. Cloud to ground, and so I’ve got killer amps, so now we can correlate a real event with the Xweather data.

Allen Hall: And we had a real life situation with that system and some of these horrible Oklahoma storms.

They had a recent storm just west of Oklahoma City, and if everybody remembers back, there was tornadoes and all kinds of horrible things from that storm. One of the things that happened there also was they had Essentially, all the lightning strikes in that part of Oklahoma were positive lightning strikes.

Yeah. And they were huge.

Yeah. 100 kiloamps each. So the turbines with StrikeTape were hitting, getting hit with 140, 160 kiloamp strikes. Those are big strikes in the United States. And they were all positive. And positive strikes tend to be the ones that damage the blades. Yeah, absolutely.

Those are the ones that most likely damage the blades. The ping, you got to pick them up every time. Yep. Every time on top of it, it was picking up. We had some notifications of this turbine got struck, but this one also had a leader on, which was a couple hundred amps. So we picked up the really high one.

We picked up ones that were under 500 amps to a turbine. So it alerted us to that. Yeah. So now we have a better understanding of what has happened out in the real world, because what did the operator do? They sent technicians out. To the turbines that were struck.

Matthew Stead: Not doing a random inspection over a field.

Not knowing which ones to inspect, or which ones got hit.

Allen Hall: Some of these farms, as Joel knows, we drove around them, are 10, 20, 30, 40 miles across. It takes an hour to drive from one end to the other. Yeah.

Joel Saxum: You’ll burn up a technician real quick their whole day just looking at turbines. So if you have a hit list, say in the morning, hey, turbine 4, 7, 10, 12, and 6 got hit last night in that storm.

Yeah. Go look at them. Perfect. That’s easy.

Matthew Stead: Yep. Rather than spending the whole day driving around. Yeah, these guys are flat out. The industry is stretched for results. And

Allen Hall: They’re all fixing pitch bearings and main bearings, right?

Matthew Stead: So they don’t have time to be running around looking at blades.

They got other things to do. Making their life easy.

Allen Hall: Yeah.

Matthew Stead: Yeah.

Allen Hall: So the acoustic piece, which is the brain, the heart of the eologix-Ping system, that has evolved over time. So the first generation of the acoustic. It is from the software side. He’s gotten a lot smarter since absolutely scary, smart.

Yeah. So inside that little acoustic sensor, if you see it, you’ll, if you look at the base of a tower that has a pink sensor on it, it’s pretty easy to pick out inside that black death star looking piece, there’s microphones in there. There is what we’ll see. Exactly. There’s okay. There’s six microphones in there and there’s a microprocessor.

Exactly. And it’s about the size of a deck of cards. Yeah. Roughly. So in there is a lot of processing power though. Yeah. So the understanding of what’s happening with the blade isn’t happening remotely. It’s actually happening on the tower.

Matthew Stead: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And that software has evolved because you’ve been on so many turbines all over the world.

You now have to understand like how a Siemens turbine performs and what noise it makes and what it means. You have understanding what a GE or an LM blade makes versus a TPI blade makes. They all make slightly different noises with different problems. So if you buy that system now, you have all that history already built into the acoustic sensor.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. We’re approaching 1400 towers now under monitoring. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think a year ago we were probably about 500, 600. Okay. Yeah. So starting to, yeah. You see that ramp up happening. I’m pleased to take orders of another thousand today.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. P. O. is booth 434.

Matthew Stead: We can deliver now, so that’s probably the key thing as well.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the one of the issues that everybody thinks about is okay, we’re in remote Texas. How does this thing connect up? Like, how does it work? If it’s not hooked up to my SCADA system, do I have to have Ethernet on site? What is, how does that actually work? How is it transmitting data and where does that data go?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, so we’re using cellular comms. And we’re using like a machine to machine comms, which is part of the 4G family. It’s 4G, but it’s called LTE M which is low power, long range. Actually in the U. S. We’ve only ever had one site where we really had challenges on comms. And that one site was near a military facility.

So maybe there was some other, that makes sense.

Allen Hall: So as long as you, your cell phone works, your technician, cell phone works, your Samsung works.

Matthew Stead: Our system works even if they don’t, because we’ve got longer range. Yeah, exactly. Cause we’re transmitting hundreds of bytes not voice. So probably.

Anywhere in the states, the continental United States. Apart from near that military facility. Yeah, no, we’re good. This year we should also be coming out with a satellite version. So if there are any black spots, you’ll have it. So

Allen Hall: is that a start? Offshore, yeah. Offshore, yeah, I wanted to talk to offshore.

But the communication bit, Starlink and those kinds of systems, that’s the next gen. Yeah. Is that already in process? Yeah, that’s this year.

Matthew Stead: That’s this year? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we’ll have more of a hub and spoke approach. So you’ll have a central hub talking to each of our devices and then that will then start linking up to Elon or whatever.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Hopefully not to him personally, but sometimes he’s listening. He might be listening.

Allen Hall: The offshore piece also because the onshore has been so successful. Obviously offshore’s the next gen and that’s where a lot more risk is in terms of new turbines and new environments that don’t have a lot of previous history.

Joel Saxum: It was, it’s a just Hey, east coast US offshore, it’s going to be a different animal.

Allen Hall: Yeah, we’re seeing everybody start to be worried about it. We talked to an operator, a really big operator that was concerned about that, particularly offshore, who also was using your system. over in Europe to trial it and what they told us and you weren’t in the room when they told us is Hey, the ping works.

Everything else we tried doesn’t work. It gives us erroneous data, a lot of false positives. We’re sending technicians out to check things that don’t exist. When we have a ping alert, it’s real and it’s actionable. So is that sort of development process that’s happened offshore in Europe? Is it starting to move towards the United States?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, absolutely. We also believe in like triangulation, like getting multiple sources of data so that, no false alarms. That’s really our aim.

Yeah. Yeah. We’re also now measuring on the blade with the eologix OnBlade, former eologix OnBlade sensor. Now we know exactly how the blade is moving or we, through, censoring.

Allen Hall: And let’s talk through that because Some of these new blades have weird dynamics. GE went through that effort on one of their blades that there were some deflection issues and they ended up putting some counterweights in basically to, to solve it. Yeah. But we’re seeing because blades get longer and the structure’s a little bit different and the environment as Joel pointed out is unique at times that you need to have a little bit of understanding of how the blades are actually moving in wind, no wind situations because changes there in The way the blade undulates Yeah.

Indicate problems. And there’s really no way to do that right now without putting a bunch of strain, eight time sensor on it. Yeah. So how does that system work then? If I wanna understand how my blade is moving, particularly, they got a new farm and I’m thinking like Sunz, right? So Sunz, there’s a thousand turbines out there.

Crazy. And all those turbines are new.

Joel Saxum: The blades are new. Everything about ’em new and the, those turbines don’t even have type certificates yet. No. As we learned,

Allen Hall: it would be a smart move. That’s a pattern energy project, right? So it would be a smart move if I’m patterned, not that I’m patterned, not that they would hire me to do this, but in my head, I’m thinking I just need a monitor to see how things move for a while.

Yeah. Then I’ll understand what good looks like versus problem. It does make sense, you think, to put some of those eologix-Ping sensors on Blade, especially when they’re on the ground. Yeah, exactly.

Matthew Stead: That’s the best time to do it.

Allen Hall: Just instrument it, put them up, start getting some data. The engineers at Pattern, the Blade engineers, are superb, right?

But they are overworked and they have a lot on their plate already. And we’re going to build the world’s largest wind farm, pretty much. Yeah. So the workload just got even a little harder. Is that the right approach then from a continuous monitoring standpoint?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, that’s the direction we’re going.

We’ve got one product out there at the moment, which talks about pitch misalignment continuously where they need to. Okay. But our sensors are able to go, up until about 20 percent mark, 80 percent from the root. And we can measure the vibration. So we know what the blade’s doing, how it’s moving.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, this is the next step for us. If I was someone who had the new two piece plates. I would put sensors, I’d put them on either side of the two piece, the joint.

Matthew Stead: No comment.

Allen Hall: I’d want to know. I think Joel, you’re right, is that it’s new technology. It has a little bit of history. That history has shown some weakness in the design. And I know there’s been a lot of effort to resolve that. But if I’m buying those blades now. Safeguard yourself. You want to safeguard myself. It’s a lot cheaper to detect it early than to detect it late.

Joel Saxum: Orders of magnitude. Yeah, absolutely. Especially, you want to make sure if there’s something developing, you catch it before you’re into warranty period.

Allen Hall: Oh, gosh, yeah. Once the warranty ends, the fight escalates.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Allen Hall: Yeah, the lawyers become involved and it gets ugly. The last piece I want to talk about is the icing sensor.

eologix has an on blade icing sensor. The Ping unit, the acoustic sensor, can also detect ice. It seems like there’s a lot of operators in the United States, Texas, all the way up in Minnesota, Canada that have icing issues and they talk about them on a downtime. And we had talked to our care about that too.

Joel Saxum: Yep yep. Yeah, I actually spoke with quite a few people here about icing this week. And I think it may have something to do with us being in Minneapolis. Yep. Ha. It’s beautiful outside of the mountains. Yeah, it’s fantastic. It was a beautiful week. But the people that are here from a stakeholder standpoint, there are, National Grid Renewables is here in town.

And Xcel Energy is headquarters, is down the street. And so the people that operate in these cold climates are here at this show. So I’ve heard more talk about icing. Here than I have, than you do normally.

Matthew Stead: Yeah.

I think, For us, ice is the core of, where we started with the eologix side. Yep.

Absolutely the core of where we started, but the future is ice and beyond, the damage and the like. That’s really where we’re going, but it’s where we started, so we, we’re monitoring, we’re stopping, we’re restarting where it’s safe. Yeah, and we’ve got, a whole fleet of problems, a fleet of sensors there.

Joel Saxum: So you’re, but the fleet of sensors, whether it’s the acoustic side, the lightning detection, icing detection, vibration, displacement, like anything that’s affecting a blade from an environmental standpoint, basically you guys, you’re picking up. Yeah. Yeah, that’s why we want to offer everything. It’s like holistic environmental monitoring for intern.

Yeah.

Allen Hall: And the way that the eologix-Ping model is set up right now, the economic model, is you choose the things that you need.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. You turn on the pieces you need. Don’t need it, don’t buy it.

Allen Hall: If you’re in Southern California, it’s not going to snow.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Probably don’t need the icing. Not in Australia.

Allen Hall: Or Australia.

Matthew Stead: I always think it’s a bit funny, I’m trying to sell, or work with customers around icing, and yeah, there’s no icing in Australia.

Allen Hall: No. The Rosemary has been skiing there. Yeah, she tells us there’s snow.

Matthew Stead: There is snow. There’s just no turbines there.

Allen Hall: Yeah, that’s right, yes. So this has been great to have you visit the United States again, Matthew.

It’s great to be here. And spend some time at American Clean Power. And it’s been a tremendous week, I think, for everybody who has participated.

Joel Saxum: And people that went to the Twins game last night and watched the Twins win.

Matthew Stead: And our team won.

Joel Saxum: Yeah.

Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Allen Hall: Thank you. Yeah. So Matthew, thanks for having on the podcast.

How do people reach out and connect with eeologix-Ping to get some continuous monitoring on their turbines?

Matthew Stead: Yeah, just eologix-ping.com. Yeah. Okay. They’ll find the right people. And or me personally, if you wish, matthew.stead@eologix.com.

Okay. Wonderful. Cool. There we go. Matthew, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Thanks guys.

https://weatherguardwind.com/monitoring-solutions-turbines-eologix-ping/

Renewable Energy

Maximise Government Rebates for Commercial Solar in 2026

Published

20 hours ago

January 23, 2026

Alice Rush

If you live in Australia, you might have heard the rumours that commercial solar rebates are being phased out.

Just got thinking if your business has missed its chance to cash in on government support?

Hold on! Let’s set the record straight: the government rebates and incentives are still active, and in 2026, they’re more strategic than ever.

Australia remains a global leader in rooftop solar, but the rules of the game have evolved. It’s no longer just about covering your roof with solar panels and exporting cheap power to the grid.

In 2026, the smart move is pairing commercial solar with battery storage, demand management, and tax planning to maximise savings and control when and how your business uses energy.

From small cafes and warehouses to large manufacturing facilities and corporate headquarters, businesses of all sizes can still unlock substantial rebates, tax incentives, and funding opportunities.

The main goal is to understand how the current program works and how to stack them correctly before the rebates end.

Therefore, this guide breaks down how to maximise government rebates for commercial solar in 2026 in Australia, so you can slash power bills, boost energy independence, and make every incentive dollar count.

Let’s dive in!

In this blog post:

Understand the Federal Government’s Core Incentive Options

At the national level, Australia’s federal government continues to support commercial solar through several key programs. The rebate program includes:

Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES)

This is one of the most popular commercial solar rebates across Australia. Under the SRES, eligible solar systems that are up to 100 kW generate Small-scale Technology Certificates.

These certificates are tradable and provide upfront discounts when you install solar. Your installer usually handles the paperwork, and the value is passed as a discount during installation.

Why does this matter for business owners?

STCs can directly reduce your upfront costs by tens of thousands, making solar a much more affordable long-term investment. This might sound exciting to many. But act sooner rather than later.

Why?

Because the value of STCs gradually decreases as we approach the RET (Renewable Energy Target) end date in 2030.

So, planning a 2026 installation can secure more certificates at higher values.

Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs)

For bigger commercial solar systems above 100 kW, it’s a different story. These systems fall under the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target and generate LGCs based on the electricity they produce each year.

These certificates are sold in the market, generating ongoing revenue, not just an upfront discount.

Why are LGCs a great option?

Provide cash flow over many years.
Can often outweigh STC savings for larger systems.

If your roof can support a system over 100 kW, you can easily scale up to access LGCs and create an annual income stream rather than just an upfront rebate.

New Federal Battery Rebate

From mid-2025, the federal government introduced battery rebates under the SRES framework, which continue into 2026.

In this battery home program, systems paired with solar can receive rebates for each usable kWh of storage installed up to 50 kWh.

This helps to:

Reduces battery cost by approximately 30%.
Enhances the value of your solar by allowing you to use more of the energy you generate rather than exporting it at a discount.

Pair solar with batteries wherever profitable. Solar alone saves you money, but paired with batteries, your business becomes more resilient and less exposed to low grid pricing.

How Can You Stack State & Territory Rebates and Grants?

Federal incentives are powerful, but stacking them with state-level rebates and grants can multiply savings.

Here’s what’s active or expected to continue in 2026:

New South Wales (NSW)

NSW supports commercial solar and batteries with:

STC rebates on solar.
Reset Peak Demand Reduction Scheme (PDRS) rebates for batteries. $1,600–$2,400 in addition to bonuses for VPP participation.

Here’s a pro tip! If you add a VPP-ready battery to existing or new solar installations, you can claim both state and federal rebates.

Victoria

Victoria continues its Solar for Business initiatives with:

Rebates for smaller commercial systems.
Interest-free loans and technical support.
Extra funding to encourage SME solar adoption.

You can pair your Victorian rebate with federal STCs and depreciation allowances for the best stack.

Queensland

Queensland has regional programs such as:

Energy audits for businesses.
Co-contribution grants.
Targeted agricultural support to reduce daytime energy costs.

Regional businesses often qualify for multiple small grants, so schedule an audit early in your planning to identify all available incentives.

Turn Australian Tax Deductions into Business Advantage: Here’s How!

Government support isn’t just limited to rebates; tax incentives can be just as valuable.

Instant Asset Write-Off & Temporary Full Expensing

Businesses installing solar can often write off the full cost of the system in the year it is installed, resulting in significant reductions in taxable income. This also:

Improves cash flow in the year of investment.
Can stack with rebates.

Before installing, consult your solar installer to ensure you’re claiming the maximum allowable deduction and that the structure aligns with your business’s tax year.

Standard Depreciation

Even if you don’t qualify for instant write-offs, solar is still a depreciating asset. You can claim deductions over its useful life, typically 20+ years, blending your return through ongoing tax savings.

Let’s Explore Strategic Funding & Innovative Financing Methods

You don’t have to own the system outright to enjoy the benefit:

Environmental Upgrade Agreements (EUAs)

There are councils, such as Environmental Upgrade Agreements (EUAs), that link loans to your property, allowing you to finance energy upgrades through your rates rather than traditional debt, often at better rates and longer terms.

In this method, solar starts saving money immediately, and a new cash-flow strategy makes solar accessible even without large upfront capital.

Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs)

With a PPA, a third party installs and owns the solar system, and you buy the energy at a reduced rate for 7–15 years.

What are the benefits:

Zero upfront cost.
Consistent electricity pricing.
Reduced risk.

A PPA may not generate STCs for you, but it can reduce out-of-pocket costs and be more financially advantageous for smaller businesses or those with constrained budgets.

Plan Your Install with Timing & Market Awareness

If you plan to install solar on your commercial property, timing is very crucial. The reason is simple and straightforward.

The rebate values decline over time. The SRES scheme reduces the number of certificates annually as 2030 approaches.
The battery rebates also step down periodically.

Therefore, all you need to do is book an appointment early, obtain free quotes, sign contracts, and schedule installations early in the financial year to secure the highest possible rebate.

How To Qualify for Maximum Returns?

In Australia, if you want to qualify for federal incentives, you must follow these two rules:

Panels and inverters must be Clean Energy Council (CEC) approved.
Installer must be accredited (Solar Accreditation Australia or equivalent).

Be aware! Skipping an accredited installer or choosing low-quality equipment can disqualify you from getting rebates, so always verify credentials and approvals.

Financial Metrics That Matter: Cash Flow, ROI & Payback

Understanding your commercial solar project isn’t just about grabbing rebates; it’s about making them count. Here’s how to approach it:

Build a 10-Year Financial Model

Include:

Upfront costs before rebates
Rebate cash inflows (STCs, state grants, battery subsidies)
Tax deductions
Avoided electricity purchases
Revenue streams (LGCs for large systems)

Then calculate:

Payback period
Net Present Value (NPV)
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

In most cases, businesses with high daytime usage see paybacks in 3–6 years, which is far better than traditional capital investments.

End Notes

Beyond rebates and tax savings, commercial solar boosts your business in ways that don’t show up on a spreadsheet instantly. It brings:

Brand credibility: Customers increasingly want sustainable partners.

Energy resilience: During peak grid pricing or outages, solar + battery keeps the lights on.

ESG leadership: If you report on environmental goals, solar is a visible, measurable contribution.

By 2026, Australia’s commercial solar incentives will still be robust, but navigating them takes strategy:

Do this first:

Understand federal incentives (STCs, LGCs, battery rebate)
Explore state rebates and stacking opportunities
Talk to your accountant about tax deductions
Get multiple quotes and install early in the year
Choose an accredited installer and products

And then:

Consider financing alternatives like EUAs or PPAs
Build a financial model before signing on the dotted line
Look beyond dollars to brand and operational resilience

Finally, the clean energy transition isn’t just an environmental choice; it’s a smart commercial move. With thoughtful planning and the right rebate stack, commercial solar in 2026 can be one of the most lucrative sustainability investments your business makes.

Ready to go solar?

Start with a trusted installer like Cyanergy, get a tailored quotation, and lock in every available rebate before they step down.

Your Solution Is Just a Click Away

The post Maximise Government Rebates for Commercial Solar in 2026 appeared first on Cyanergy.

https://cyanergy.com.au/blog/maximise-government-rebates-for-commercial-solar-in-2026/

Renewable Energy

Voters’ Priorities

Published

1 day ago

January 23, 2026

Alice Rush

For the ~55% of us who vehemently disapprove of Trump, it’s getting him out of office before he turns the United States into Russia or China.

Voters’ Priorities

Renewable Energy

CanREA Operators Summit Tackles Aging Fleets

Published

2 days ago

January 22, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

CanREA Operators Summit Tackles Aging Fleets

Allen and Joel are joined by Mathieu Cōté from CanREA to preview the upcoming Operators Summit in Toronto. With many Canadian wind projects reaching 17-20 years old, the industry faces critical decisions about extending, repowering, or decommissioning assets. Register now!

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining Light on Wind. Energy’s brightest innovators. This is the Progress Powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Matt, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Well, the theme of this Year’s Operator Summit is coming of age and. There’s a lot of things happening in the renewable side up in Canada. What does that mean for Canadian renewable energy operators right now?

Mathieu Cōté: Well, we came up with coming of age because, um, the fleet in Canada is in a bit of a different space than it is in the States where, uh, right now we’ve got a lot of projects that are on the cusp of coming to their end of initial lifetime.

Right. They’re in that. 17 to 20 year range. There’s some that are a little bit past, and so you, as an operator, you gotta be asking yourself, is this the time to extend this project? What do I have to do [00:01:00] if I need to extend? Um, or am I repowering, am I taking things down, putting them up? And I mean, there’s a lot of different variables there.

Sometimes it’s just a re topping, sometimes it’s everything down to ground level and go again. Or it’s, maybe it’s a decommissioning and those decisions are on the cusp of being made in the operation space in Canada. So that’s, that’s a super important part of it. But the other side of it, and the reason we liked, uh, coming of age is from the industry perspective itself.

We are no longer the new kid on the block, right? We are now a reliable, uh, professional industry that can deliver power when you need it. Uh, so that’s what we’re trying to, to convey with this coming of age. And, and we’ve got some really good speakers who are gonna talk about that, uh, from. The grid operator’s perspective saying, why is it that renewables are one of the first things they reach for now when they realize they need more power?

Joel Saxum: I think it’s an interesting space and I think to, to [00:02:00]comment more deeply on that, right? That you guys are in that, you

Mathieu Cōté: know,

Joel Saxum: 2005, six you started installing a

Mathieu Cōté: lot of the, a lot of wind assets. There was a curve of, as it as every year you get more and more. Trickle and then becomes a flood quite quickly.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. And, and, and you know, from, from the operation standpoint, we deal with some of the wind farms in Canada. We love working with, uh, the operators up there because they do exude that professionalism. They’re on top of their game. They know they’ve gotta maintain these things. Whereas in the states, we’ve been a little bit nascent sometimes and, oh, we got PTC coming so we don’t have to do these certain things.

Little bit more cowboy. Yeah. Yeah. And up in Canada, they’re, they’re, they’ve been doing the right things for a long time. Um, and I think it’s a good, good model to follow, but you’re a hundred percent correct. We’re coming to that time when it’s like decision time to be made here. And I think we, in our, in our uh, kind of off air chat, you had mentioned that, you know, repower in Canada is.

Pretty early stages. I

Mathieu Cōté: only know about

Joel Saxum: one,

Mathieu Cōté: to [00:03:00] be honest, and I try and keep track of these things,

Joel Saxum: but that’s coming down the pipeline,

Mathieu Cōté: right? So there’s gonna be more and more of these happening. And I mean, there are a lot of operators that have one foot on either side of the border, so some people have some operational experience on what steps you need to take, but it’s also from the regulatory side, like what is your grid operator gonna insist on?

So on and so on. But, uh, so we’ve got some panels to talk about things like, one of my favorites is, uh, how much life is left in your machine? And that’s sort of a deeper dive from an engineering standpoint. Like what math do the engineers do to assess, is this foundation good to go for another 10 years?

Is this tower gonna stand up to whatever? Should we replace the blades and all those components? We, we’ve got a foundation expert, uh, someone who does. Digital twin sort of things as well as, um, a panelist from, uh, Nordex, so the OEM sort of perspective as well, and how they assess how much [00:04:00] life is left in a machine.

So like that’s the sort of panels that we’re trying to put together that we’re pretty excited about.

Joel Saxum: Well, I think that’s a good one too, because I know Alan and I we’re talking around the industry globally. A lot of it is around CMS. And when we say CMS, we’re not just talking drive train anymore, we’re talking everything you can in the turbine, right?

So the, the concept of remaining useful life, r ul, that always comes up, where are we at with this, right? Because from a global perspective in Europe, they have, you know, in Spanish wind farms are all, a lot of ’em are at that 25 year mark. What are we doing here? So you guys are bringing that conversation to the Canadian market at this operator summit in Toronto here in February.

It’s, it’s timely, right? Because it’s February and everybody’s getting ready for spring, so you got a little bit of time to come to the conference.

Mathieu Cōté: Well, and that’s one of the things that we actually used to do is show in April and we’ve moved it back after hearing feedback from our, from our audience that April’s almost too late, right?

Like, if you’re doing your assessments for your [00:05:00] blades, it where? Where’s your manpower coming up? Coming from in the summertime? Those contracts are already signed. By the time you hit April, February, you’ve still got time. Your RFP might be out so you can meet all the proponents on site at once. It, it just makes a lot more sense for us to do it in February.

Allen Hall: Well, there’s a wide range of technology in Canada in regards to wind to energy. That adds to the complexity where a lot of turbines, unlike the United States, are maybe even sub one megawatt, and with new turbines coming online, they’re gonna be in the five, six, maybe even seven megawatt range. That’s a huge dispersed.

Industry to try to maintain massive range. Yeah. Right. And I, and, and I think one of the dilemmas about that is trying to find people who understand that tho all those different kinds of machines and the intricacies of each one of them and how to operate them more efficiently, which is where Canada is.

Quite honestly. The, the thing [00:06:00] about that and the challenge for Canada Head, and this is why the conference is so important, is. If there’s someone in Canada that has the answer, as Joel and I have talked to a number of Canadian operators, you may not know them. I know it’s a smaller marketplace in general, but unless you’re talking to one another, you probably, uh, don’t realize there’s, there’s help within Canada.

And these conferences really highlight that quite a bit. Wanna talk about some of the, sort of the interactions you guys create at the conference?

Mathieu Cōté: Yeah. Oh, well, it’s one of the things that can RIA tries to do is play that connector role, right? Like, we don’t know everything, but like you say, we know someone who knows something and we can put you in touch with all.

I know a guy who knows a guy. Um, but we’re, we’re always able to, to, to connect those dots. And I mean, we, we do a lot of, uh. Things like working groups and uh, regional meetings. And, uh, we’ve even got, uh, different summits for different things. Getting a little bit outside of operations, but like we [00:07:00] have an Atlantic operators group that gathers together and has a chat just sometimes, usually there’s a focus topic, but then we have, oh, how do you guys deal with the storm that came through?

Or that sort of thing, or what, what do you do for if you need a new blade or has anyone got a good vendor for this thing or that thing? Those sorts of things always happen in the margins. And I mean, the ops summit is the, the best one of those because it’s the entire Canadian industry that gets together.

We’ve got folks from bc, we’ve got folks from Atlantic Canada, there’s gonna be people from Quebec, and there’s vendors from all those places as well. Right? So. It’s covering all your bases and it’s the one place that you can talk to everybody and meet everybody in like a 48 hour period.

Joel Saxum: Well, I think that if, you know, just doing a little bit of deep dive into the agenda and the program here, that’s one of the things that you guys are focusing on.

Targeted networking. So morning breakfasts, evening receptions, there, you know, structured and informal, uh, opportunities to actually connect with the o and m [00:08:00] community. Um, one of them that you had mentioned was kind of, um. Hands-on demonstrations and, and for me, when, when I see these things, ’cause I’ve seen them kind of slightly not, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody do it perfectly well.

I’m excited to see what you guys do. But you get, you get a group of people standing around, like you get people kind of standing around. Rubbing elbows going, like, what do you think about that? What is, does this, is this gonna work? And, and those to me are great, great conversations for networking and kind of figuring things out together.

The collaboration part.

Mathieu Cōté: Absolutely. Uh, well on those two points, the, the networking has always been a huge part of this show, and we’ve always built into the program. Okay. There’s some stuff on stage, but then there’s a break. And I mean, you can wander around the showroom floor and you can, but you can talk to the other people.

And, uh, that’s a big part of this. That’s an important part of this. And then on the, the demonstrations and so on, we used to have what we called, uh, elevator pitches, uh, where, and we’ve done it various different ways where people get five minutes, one slide, you’re on [00:09:00] stage, you say your piece, you give us your elevator pitch, and then you get off and someone else gets up and talks.

And we found that, that, and the feedback we got was that that was good because that condensed all of the salesy parts and kept it away from the panels. ’cause the panels, we want them to be informative, not. Selling you something. We want you to learn something. But the sales pitch is, there is some sense of like someone’s trying to sell you a thing.

But we’re evolving that a little bit this year where we’re going towards demonstrations. So on the showroom floor, there will be someone who will have a tangible thing, whether it’s here’s the new fireproof coat that we’ve come up with, or here’s how this, uh, sling works, or here’s this piece of kit that fits on your machine that catches bolts when they break, or whatever it is.

Here’s how it actually works, and they’ve got it in their hands and they can play with the go until it, uh, really, like you say, gets that light bulb moment that gets you to see how it works. And you can see that ROI [00:10:00] right away going, oh, okay. That if it catches the bolts when they break, then it doesn’t rattle around.

And then I’ve gotta spend X amount less time fixing, missed out. Or the other thing, like it’s, it, it’s a, it’s a better way of doing it is, uh, what we feel. And like you say, then you get. Being on the showroom floor, it’s in amongst the booths. So people who are on the showroom floor can just sort of look over their shoulder, see that, okay, I really gotta go check out that guy.

Joel Saxum: I like the idea of the format and there’s a couple other things like lessons learned track we talked about a little bit too. But one of the things for me for trade shows is when Alan and I went to ETC in Calgary a few years ago, two years ago I think. Yep. You actually had the. The conversations, the panel conversations, the discussions, the knowledge sharing happening on the showroom floor.

I don’t like going to a conference where I have to go in, like I’m talking with some people, but, oh, I gotta run across this thing across over here, a mile away into some back room to listen to someone talk about something. I like, I like being where the information is [00:11:00] happening and sharing, and I can stand off to the side and listen a bit and, and still engage.

Um, and you guys are doing some more of that too through the lessons learned track. Um, can you explain that a little bit to us?

Mathieu Cōté: Well, we’ve always had, uh, like a, some split in concurrent sessions and so on. But to your point of not running off to the other end, we’re in a pretty intimate space where we’ve got like a room for lunch and the plenaries, we’ve got a room for the exhibit hall, and then right next to it is any of the, uh, off to the side stuff.

It’s all within a one minute walk of, of itself, which is much better. So we’ve got the concurrent, uh, sessions and. This year we split them instead of into two. We split ’em into three though that then we’ve got one for specific to wind. We’ve got one specific to solar and storage. ’cause we are renewable energy, not just wind.

And then we’ve got one, uh, that’s a bit of a grab bag and it’s a bit of a different format. So instead of your traditional three [00:12:00] panelists plus a moderator, everyone’s got a slide, everyone’s gotta talk, blah, blah, blah. This thing, it, it’s much more focused. You’ve got one person who’s got a real important thing to say, whether it’s, here’s, uh, lessons learned on how our hub fell off and here’s what we learned from it.

Here’s our root cause analysis, or here’s, uh, a much better way of doing, uh, our health and safety program has worked much better for us. Here’s what we gain from it, or whatever happens to be. And then one moderator to ask them some questions, pick apart. So this part, how to, uh, and get a bit of a, a flow there.

So, and it’s much shorter. Instead of an hour long, it’s only a half hour. So then you don’t have to sit through two people. You don’t care about to listen to the one person that you do is the intent of these, uh, lessons learned? I,

Joel Saxum: I do really like the concept simply because when I go to an event or like, um, putting something together, I want people to be able to go.

Learn something, take it back to their respective [00:13:00] organization, be able to implement it tomorrow. And it sounds like you guys are really moving towards that with the lessons learned, the collaboration and the knowledge sharing.

Mathieu Cōté: That’s, that’s the intent. And that, and that’s really what it is, is I, I’m, I think I’m a smart guy, but I don’t have all the answers.

So we’re really trying to shine a light on the people who do, and like, here’s a thing that the industry as a whole should learn about. And give them some time to talk about it. And like you say, then you’ll get some of those conversations in the margins and in in between going, yeah, this guy had this thing to say.

We get that sort of dialogue going. That’s, that’s the intent. It’s all about, uh, discussions and learning from each other.

Joel Saxum: To me, it sounds like even, um, for lack of a, maybe a trip to get some poutine and maybe an American, American should go out there and listen to some of the stuff you guys have to say as well.

Mathieu Cōté: Honestly, it’s, it’s worth it for, uh, Americans to come by and we do have a significant number, proportion of the, the audience comes from the states as well. Because like you say, it’s, it’s worth it and it’s good information and it’s a good [00:14:00] portion of the thing. And it’s really not that far. And I mean, um, not to put it lightly, we do tend to lean a little heavier on some of the more, uh, Canadian elements like weather.

Like we do have a panel this year, um, on the solar side, solar operations and adverse conditions. And that one, um. Because that one came from, uh, I know a guy at, uh, natural Resources Canada, who was part of a working group at the International Energy Agency in their photovoltaic power systems group, where they came up with, uh, a report on operations in all kinds of adverse conditions around the world.

So he’s gonna present that report and we’ll have a panel discussion. The other panelists there, we’ve got, um. Ben Power, the CEO of ves, who is the number one installer of solar in the Yukon, right next to Alaska. So they know a lot about adverse conditions and then, uh, polar racking, they’ve got a lot of experience, uh, with that sort of thing too.

And they’ve got some data that they’re gonna bring to the [00:15:00] panel as well. So it should be a really good discussion about how do we deal with bad things happening in solar specifically.

Allen Hall: Well, sure. Uh, Canada’s been running assets a lot longer than we have been in the States. In fact, to Joel’s earlier point, we’re repairing.

Disassembling putting new stuff up all the time. Canada has been more focused on keeping existing equipment running in some crazy, harsh conditions. The US is moving that way. You wanna know about ice? We could tell you about ice. Exactly. Like how many times has the US run into trouble with icing on wind turbines and we should have been talking to, or her neighbors through the north, but in a lot of cases, yeah.

The I, I find that the time I went. I learned a whole bunch about Canadian operations, how to think about some of these problems differently. That was the beauty of a attending a Kria event, and I know there’s gonna be a lot of people attending this event. Who is it for in general? Obviously [00:16:00] it’s for operators, but is there some value here for like asset managers?

Some of the engineers, some of the service providers,

Mathieu Cōté: yeah. That our, our core market, if you want, is your site managers and your technical people, but engineers, 100%, they will learn something. Your asset managers will definitely have some value in it, whether it’s learning about the technology or learning about, uh, the, the latest things coming out or even just.

Best practices from other folks, right? We’ve also got, uh, more and more we’re getting people from the insurance industry getting involved because some of these, uh, lessons learned and so on, is really valuable to them. And we’re even running, um, if, if people are in insurance, we have a special meeting for insurance.

The, the day before where we’ll be having a, a dialogue between the insurance industry and the operators and like, here’s how we deal with this. This is why the prices are that. And, uh, talk about that risk transfer type stuff. There are the odd developer who comes out. Um, but it’s more for the, [00:17:00] like, once it’s in the ground, the technical people, uh, the tooling manufacturers, the service providers, the, all, all of those folks.

Joel Saxum: What about ISPs? Oh, a hundred percent. We know quite a few ISPs up in Canada. Every one of them that I’ve talked to is coming. So ev I’ve had the conversations and like I, you know, we’re, we’re doing some other things in February as well around here, and I was, Hey, what are you guys? Oh, we’re all going to the Candry Ops summit.

We’re going to the Candry Ops summit, so to Toronto and February. Um, bring your warm jacket. I suppose it could be cold. Yeah, the, the ISPs will be there in, in full force. And so I think that. To me, it’s like the, the, the cousin to the A-C-P-O-M-S. We like OMS in the states because that’s where the real discussions happen around operations and maintenance.

Mathieu Cōté: The technical stuff happens. Yeah. And it, I like to say it’s the, the, the younger cousin, if you will, and the maple syrup cousin.

Allen Hall: Well, I do think though, that when we’re at, uh, o, M and S Joel, that [00:18:00] those discussions are a little bit different than what I see up at Kria. Like Kria is a. Community OMS is, yeah, we, we all know one another and maybe it’s just there’s this, a bigger event or more people, but it, I don’t feel the sort of connection I do when I’m at Kria.

Like I know the people, I understand what’s going on at Kria. That’s what makes it fun that I get to see people that I, I know once in a while, but at the same time there is a huge, massive amount of. Sharing

Mathieu Cōté: that community that you speak to, that that’s really what we’re trying to, to gather in. And there’s a difference of scale too.

I mean, uh, the OMS is like 3000 people and we’re three to 400. So there, there’s a difference there. But that sort of intimacy leads to a fair bit more of that sharing that you’re talking about and like that Oh yeah, there’s that guy. Oh, there’s Derek from Capstone, or there’s Dan from EDF or there, you know, and then you.

You run into them and then you, you catch [00:19:00] up on all the latest and, um, what’s going on, how are things going? And so on and so on. And there’s time for all of that in the, in the two day show that we have.

Joel Saxum: Well, I think collaboration in a smaller, like the right size group is, is much easier and flows better.

Right? Once you get to that thousand two, three, 4,000, it’s like, yeah, you’re there, you’re seeing the people, but like it’s just not the same.

Mathieu Cōté: Et c is somewhere around 3000 people and it, it, it’s got that heft. It’s a different audience as well. Right? The o and m crowd isn’t there as much. It’s not quite as technical, so it it, it’s a speaking to a different group of people.

Allen Hall: Well, Canada is on a growth spurt for renewables. There’s a lot of wind energy

Mathieu Cōté: headed up towards Quebec. There are procurement’s open right now in Quebec, Nova Scotia, new Brunswick. Uh, Ontario, BC and Manitoba

Joel Saxum: Plus, what was it? Fi what was it? Five offshore lease areas off of Nova Scotia.

Mathieu Cōté: Yeah, they’re looking at up to five gigawatts offshore in Nova Scotia.

We don’t have [00:20:00] any yet in Nova in, uh, offshore. And there’s some, they need to figure out what the offtake is and where the transmission goes. Uh, but there’s a lot of people working in the background on MA putting that together. So it’s growing. Oh, a hundred percent. It’s growing and across the board, right.

And the. Wind or solar or storage or all three. And that, that a lot of the, the procurements these days are starting to move in a direction of, uh, sort of a technology agnostic where they say, we need megawatts. We don’t care how you make them. We just want electricity. Well, electricity, uh, but also electricity capacity.

So in the one case we figure wind and solar will do quite well, and in the other we’ll figure the battery storage will do quite well. So no matter what and in the timelines that they’re asking for, we’re looking at if you want it in the next five years, it’s probably gonna be wind and solar because anything else is gonna be a seven plus year timeline to get into the ground.

So [00:21:00] there, there’s a lot. There’s a lot coming.

Allen Hall: Well, up to 20% of the energy, electricity in Canada nationally is gonna be generated by renewables in less than 10 years.

Mathieu Cōté: Canada’s split up a lot, remember like, and Quebec is already at 90 plus with their hydro and bc same thing.

Joel Saxum: And I, and I think that that’s something to be, to be shared as well here is from an o and m standpoint.

The, the varied geographies of Canada and how spread apart it is, there’s specialized knowledge up there to, to, to, you know, till the cow come home. So it’s a great place to go and learn. I would encourage people, hey, if you’re, if you’re in anywhere around Michigan, the Great Lakes Toronto’s a three hour drive.

Go there, do the conference and learn something,

Mathieu Cōté: and hey, we’re right next to the airport. It’s quick flight. Almost anywhere from North America, right? So Toronto’s easy to get in and

Allen Hall: out of, and this is gonna be a great event. The Can Operators Summit. It’s February 11th and 12th at the Delta Hotel by [00:22:00] Marriott, Toronto, right at the airport.

So you, you can’t miss it. It’s easy to get in, easy to get out. You’re gonna have a great time. Matt, how do they connect and register for this event?

Mathieu Cōté: We have a registration link that I’m sure we’ll put somewhere. Um, or come to our website, kenia.ca?

Allen Hall: Yeah, just Google Can Operator Summit. That’s what I did.

And that takes you right to the registration. Get signed up there. It’s inexpensive in Toronto is a really cool city. February 11th and 12th. At the Delta Hotels by Marriott, right at the airport. The Canary Operator Summer is going to be a lot of fun. Matt, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Really enjoyed having you. Well, thanks for having [00:23:00] me.