UQ Solar has a highly interdisciplinary team from Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Cyber-Physical System Security, Data Science, and Energy Economics to put joint efforts to improve the efficiency and delivery of solar energy across Queensland. The research team consists of 10 academics and 30 PhD students. The team is directed by Prof Tapan K. Saha – the Leader of UQ’s Power, Energy, and Control (PEC) Discipline.
The research at UQ Solar is heavily funded by ARENA, ARC, Australian Federal Govt., Advance QLD, and other industry-funded projects. Some noteworthy research facilities UQ Solar has access to include UQ Industry 4.0 Energy TestLab, Renewable Energy Laboratory, St Lucia 2.15 MWh TESLA battery, Gatton 760 kWh battery storage system, 64 MW Warwick Solar Plant, and 3.275 MW Gatton Solar facilities.
Providing innovative engineering solutions to the Australian electricity industry is one of the core objectives of UQ Solar research. Hence, UQ Solar has a large number of industry collaborators from Australia including Powerlink, Energex, Ergon Energy, GridQube, Redback Technologies, AEMO, SIEMENS, Springfield City Group and Engie.