NSW Decarb Hub Funding Winners: Open CER Tools & Data Fund

New grants will help households, councils and policymakers make smarter decisions on solar, batteries and electric vehicles.

Behind many of the breakthroughs in Australia’s clean energy transition sit quietly powerful tools: spreadsheets that model electricity bills, datasets that track how solar and batteries behave on real networks, or software that helps households make sense of their energy use. Often, these tools are built by researchers to answer a specific question, deliver a single project, or meet the needs of a narrow audience. Once the research ends, the tools are rarely maintained, shared widely, nor adapted for others to use.

The Open CER Tools & Data Enablement Fund, delivered by the Electrification and Energy Systems Network (EESN) of the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub, was created to address that missed opportunity. Rather than funding brand new platforms, the fund focuses on improving and extending existing open‑source Consumer Energy Resources (CER) tools and datasets – helping them reach new users, support better decisions, and deliver broader benefits for communities, policymakers and researchers across New South Wales. 

CER technologies (such as rooftop solar, batteries, electric vehicles and smart energy management systems) are now central to NSW’s pathway to net zero. Yet their successful uptake depends not only on hardware, but on access to transparent data, trusted analysis and easy‑to‑use decision tools. Households need clarity on costs and benefits. Councils and network planners need reliable, real‑world data. Policymakers need open, reproducible models to test ideas and design fairer energy systems.

 A competitive assessment process was pursued: an independent panel of experts from industry, government and academia reviewed submissions to the fund. Drawing on their recommendations, the Decarbonisation Innovation Hub is supporting five projects that collectively illustrate the growing maturity, and diversity, of open CER innovation in NSW. 

Flavours of Tools 

Some projects focus on making the economics of electricity clearer. An open‑source electricity bill calculator will allow researchers, advocates and communities to model and compare pricing plans, with and without solar and batteries, using transparent assumptions. By lifting the lid on how bills are calculated, the tool aims to support fairer policy design and more informed consumer decisions as pricing structures evolve. 

Others tackle the challenge of turning complex energy data into something people can act on. One project extends an open energy monitoring platform to provide simple visualisations and AI‑enabled guidance designed specifically for everyday households. Instead of overwhelming users with graphs and numbers, the goal is to translate data into practical insights – helping households reduce bills and emissions through small, informed changes. 

Decision‑making is also a recurring theme. An interactive comparison tool for solar and battery systems will bring together trusted market data and intuitive visualisation, enabling households and small businesses to explore realistic options available in NSW. By reducing confusion and information overload, the project aims to support better investment decisions and accelerate uptake of proven technologies. 

Other projects focus on the infrastructure and system‑level foundations of electrification. Open datasets and planning tools for electric vehicle charging will support councils, planners and network providers to deploy public charging infrastructure more efficiently, using real‑world data rather than assumptions. Meanwhile, an expanded open dataset on the performance of residential inverters under network disturbances will strengthen the evidence base for standards, planning and investment – helping integrate higher levels of CER safely and reliably into the electricity system. 

Each project will receive $20,000 in seed funding, alongside co‑funding from industry partners, to enhance documentation, usability, interoperability and long‑term sustainability. While modest in size, the grants are designed to have an outsized impact: enabling existing tools and datasets to travel further, last longer, and be used by audiences well beyond their original research context. 

Taken together, the funded projects reflect a broader shift in how decarbonisation innovation is being approached in NSW. Progress is no longer just about developing new technologies, but about opening up knowledge, lowering barriers to participation, and ensuring that the benefits of CER are shared widely. By investing in open tools and data, the NSW Decarb Hub is helping build the connective tissue between research, policy and practice – supporting a cleaner, fairer and more informed energy transition.

The Funded Projects: Open Tools with Real‑World Impact:

1. Making Electricity Bills Transparent and Comparable

Project: Open‑source Bill Calculator Python Package
Project Lead: Assistant Researcher Ellie Kallmier
Institution: University of New South Wales
Collaborator: The Australian PV Institute 

Electricity bills are one of the most tangible (and confusing!) interfaces between households and the energy system. Pricing structures vary widely, assumptions are often hidden, and comparisons between plans can be opaque, particularly once solar and batteries are added into the mix. 

Led by Ellie Kallmier at UNSW, this project is enhancing an existing open‑source Python package designed to calculate and compare electricity bills under different tariff structures. By making the logic and assumptions behind bill modelling fully transparent and publicly accessible, the tool enables researchers, policymakers, advocates and communities to test scenarios, explore equity impacts and understand how pricing reforms affect different households. 

The project reflects a growing recognition that fair energy transitions depend not only on technology, but on trust, transparency and access to clear information – particularly as NSW moves toward more complex, dynamic pricing environments. 

2. Turning Household Energy Data into Everyday Guidance

Project: EcoVisNSW: Extending Emoncms with Ambient Visualisation and AI Guidance to Accelerate Household Decarbonisation
Project Lead: Associate Professor Tony Huang
Institution: University of Technology Sydney
Collaborator: Delectro 

Many households now generate large volumes of energy data, but very little of it translates into meaningful action. Dashboards can be technical, cluttered, or simply ignored once the novelty wears off. 

Associate Professor Tony Huang and his team at UTS are addressing this gap by extending the open‑source Emoncms platform to deliver ambient visualisation and AI‑enabled guidance designed specifically for everyday households. The EcoVisNSW project focuses on simplicity: transforming raw data into intuitive displays and personalised prompts that fit naturally into daily life. 

By lowering the cognitive load required to engage with energy data, the project aims to encourage smarter energy use, reduce bills and emissions, and support broader participation in NSW’s household‑led decarbonisation effort.  

3. Helping Households and Small Businesses Choose the Right Solar and Battery Systems

Project: Open CER Decision‑Support Tool with Market Data and Interactive Visualisation for PV and Battery Selection
Project Lead: Associate Professor Kaveh Khalilpour
Institution: University of Technology Sydney
Collaborators: UTS Visualisation Institute, UTS School of Computer Science 

Choosing a solar or battery system can be daunting. Product specifications are technical, marketing claims are inconsistent, and comparisons across options are rarely straightforward. 

This project, led by Associate Professor Kaveh Khalilpour at UTS, is enhancing an open decision‑support tool that brings together trusted market data with interactive visualisation. Designed for households and small businesses, the tool enables users to explore realistic PV and battery options available in NSW and understand how different choices perform under varying conditions. 

By making comparisons clearer and more accessible, the project reduces uncertainty and supports more confident investment decisions, helping consumers choose solutions that genuinely deliver cost savings and emissions reductions.  

4. Open EV Charging Data for Smarter Infrastructure Planning

Project: Open EV Charging Data & Tools Enablement for CER Planning in NSW
Project Lead: Dr Arastoo Teymouri
Institution: University of New South Wales
Collaborators: UNSW Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM), Waverley Council 

As electric vehicle uptake accelerates, the challenge is no longer whether to build charging infrastructure, but where, how fast and at what scale. Poorly planned deployments risk under‑utilised assets, grid constraints and community frustration. 

Dr Arastoo Teymouri and collaborators are extending open datasets and analytics tools that use real‑world EV charging data to support better planning decisions. By making charging behaviour data and modelling tools openly accessible, the project enables councils, planners and network providers to design infrastructure that is better aligned with actual demand. 

The result is a more efficient rollout of public charging infrastructure, supporting EV uptake while minimising costs and network impacts across NSW.  

5. Strengthening the Evidence Base for Reliable CER Integration

Project: CER Inverter Data Curation and Open Access Platform
Project Lead: Associate Professor Georgios Konstantinou
Institution: University of New South Wales
Collaborator: Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) 

As rooftop solar and battery installations continue to expand, understanding how inverters behave under real network disturbances becomes critical to maintaining system reliability. Yet high‑quality testing data is often fragmented, difficult to access, or poorly documented. 

Led by Associate Professor Georgios Konstantinou at UNSW, this project is updating and expanding an open, publicly accessible dataset capturing the performance of small‑scale, residential CER, including solar and battery inverters, under network disturbances. By improving data curation, documentation and accessibility, the project strengthens the foundations for better planning, standards development and investment decisions. 

The work supports the safe, reliable and cost‑effective integration of higher levels of small‑scale, residential consumer energy resources, an essential condition for NSW’s clean energy future.  

Small Grants, Long‑Term Value 

Each project will receive $20,000 in seed funding, complemented by industry co‑funding, to extend tools and datasets that already exist, improving usability, sustainability and reach. While modest in scale, the projects share a common ambition: to ensure that the knowledge generated through research does not remain locked away, but instead supports better decisions, fairer outcomes and faster decarbonisation across NSW.