Home topics news Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons News News CSIRO upgrades $3M energy lab and opens it to businesses testing renewable tech Yajush Gupta February 26, 2026 CSIRO’s Renewable Energy Integration Facility just doubled its testing capacity. Startups, SMEs and researchers can now apply to use it. Here’s what changed and why it matters. What’s happening: CSIRO has officially launched a $3 million upgrade to its Renewable Energy Integration Facility (REIF) in Newcastle, more than doubling the lab’s power testing capacity. Why this matters: Australia’s energy grid is under mounting pressure. Rooftop solar now generates over 12% of Australia’s electricity and new clean energy investment hit $12.7 billion in 2024, the highest year on record. Australia’s electricity grid is in the middle of one of the most significant transformations it has seen in a century, and a research facility in Newcastle is now at the centre of it. On 25 February 2026, CSIRO officially launched the expanded Renewable Energy Integration Facility (REIF) at its Newcastle Energy Centre, following a $3 million upgrade that more than doubles the facility’s power testing capacity and introduces advanced grid and battery emulation tools, programmable inverters, and real-time hardware simulation for large-scale experiments. The facility, which has operated since 2009 when it was opened by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, is one of the largest renewable and grid integration testing facilities in the Southern Hemisphere. The upgrade now enables researchers to simulate microgrids, grid faults, household and commercial energy systems, and the interactions between solar