The story behind Sunshine Hydro's Queensland iAward for AESOP
I wanted to share a bit of good news, and the story behind it.
Last week I attended the Queensland AIIA iAwards. We were invited as a finalist after Rick put together and submitted our application. They told us there were a lot of strong entries across Queensland this year, so it was good to even be in the room.
The awards were held in the afternoon. I found myself sitting next to Vicki from Datacom, one of the sponsors, and she asked what Sunshine Hydro actually does. Our conversation, her questions and my answers, served me well for what came later.
Off the cuff, I said to her: what we're doing is impossible.
That seemed like a good headline. Maybe I could use it in my speech if we got an award.
The finalists in the preceding categories were very impressive, so I wondered if winning an award would be possible. In our category, the Sustainability & Environmental Solution, there were two finalists, us and Micro genix. In our category, the Sustainability & Environmental Solution, the merit award went to Micro Genix.
Wow, that meant we had won.
What a lovely surprise. Luckily, I had just explained to Vicki what we do, so that became my two minute talk about our work at Sunshine Hydro and AESOP, our software.
What we're doing is meant to be impossible
You will have heard it said that renewable energy cannot run a steel mill or an aluminium smelter because it is too variable and unreliable.
Well, that is exactly the problem we have been working on.
How do you turn variable wind and solar into reliable, around the clock power that can continuously support heavy industry?
To test whether this is actually possible, we built the software platform recognised at the iAwards: AESOP.
At its core, AESOP is a digital twin of an energy system operating as a coordinated whole. It combines real data from wind and solar farms with a simulated large scale storage system. It models the system as though it were operating in the National Electricity Market today.
The idea is simple enough in principle. Store energy when it is sunny and windy, and hold it so it can be used later, sometimes days later, when conditions are poor.
The hardest part is looking ahead
The hardest part, by far, is looking ahead.
You need to understand what the weather may be doing several days in advance, sometimes up to a week. If there is a calm period coming, you need to be storing a lot of energy now so that, when the wind drops and the clouds roll in, there is still enough stored energy to provide the steady output a customer needs.
That is why AESOP is more than a monitoring screen. It helps model forecasts, storage decisions, customer demand and market conditions together. It lets us test how the whole system might behave before a project is built and how it could be coordinated in operation.
The customer need has changed
In his keynote, Professor Tim Kastelle made the point that innovators need to talk to their customers. We have done that. A response we often heard was that "nobody needs that kind of energy."
But a recurring theme in energy discussions now is the challenge of powering AI and its data centres.
What they need is the same basic quality of power required by a steel mill: steady supply, around the clock.
The problem we set out to solve for heavy industry is increasingly the problem facing digital infrastructure. Data centres cannot simply pause when the wind drops or wait for the sun to return.
Our approach is designed to test how a coordinated portfolio of renewable generation and long duration storage could provide continuous clean power for that kind of customer.
The system may also retain flexibility to release additional energy into the grid at peak times, when customer commitments, stored energy and market conditions allow. That wider value must be tested rather than assumed, but it is an important part of the opportunity.
I think our time has come
While we set out to solve one "impossible" problem, it turns out the solution is becoming exactly what data centres need for their power supply, and for their social license to operate.
I think our time has come.
I was so chuffed to see this work recognised. It is really an award of recognition for Tim, our Principal Software Engineer, who has built AESOP into something that does not just look good on paper.
It makes predictions that are reliable. It holds together when you push it. And it gives us a way to test and operate a system that many people still assume cannot be built.
Well done, Tim, and the rest of the Sunshine Hydro team, all of whom, in their own way, contributed to this recognition. And thank you to Rick for putting together the application that got us into the room.
The Queensland award is encouraging, but the real test remains practical. Get the message out that we have a robust solution to the data centre dilemma… how to get reliable power and at the same time make the grid stronger.
That is how an "impossible" idea becomes the solution to the data centre challenge.
Source And Reference Links
- AIIA, 2026 Queensland Winners & Merit Recipients: https://aiia.com.au/iaward/2026-qld-winners-merit-recipients/
- AIIA, 2026 Queensland iAwards Ceremony: https://aiia.com.au/event/qld-iawards-ceremony-2026/
- Sunshine Hydro technology: https://sunshinehydro.com/technology/
- AESOP: The Powerful Technology Turning Renewable Energy Chaos into a Symphony: https://sunshinehydro.com/aesop-the-powerful-technology-turning-renewable-energy-chaos-into-a-symphony/
