Project Jupiter

What is Project Jupiter?

Launched in January 2025, Project Jupiter is designed to accelerate the integration of rooftop solar, home and community batteries into WA’s main energy system through virtual power plants, providing a more resilient and sustainable energy system, and the opportunity for households and small businesses to access greater value from their energy assets.

The project is a collaboration between Western Power, Synergy, the Australian Energy Market Operator, and Energy Policy WA, with funding from a $20.8 million grant provided by the Federal Government’s ARENA program to advance renewable energy.

This new initiative will build the functionality needed for WA households and businesses to participate in the energy transition, alongside large-scale energy producers like power stations and major renewable generators.

By enabling WA households and businesses to contribute to a more secure and reliable energy system, Project Jupiter will play a critical role in WA’s transition to a more sustainable energy future. 

Why is Project Jupiter being launched?

Currently, over 40% of households in the South West Interconnected System have rooftop solar panels. While this high percentage is a positive step and a strong representation of the region's commitment to a sustainable energy transition, it presents a challenge in balancing energy supply and demand.

Project Jupiter aims to accelerate the integration of rooftop solar and batteries into WA’s energy market through virtual power plants, facilitating greater participation from households and businesses in the energy system.

Building on the success of Project Symphony, Project Jupiter will scale up the opportunity for these assets, known as Distributed Energy Resources (DER), to join virtual power plants across the South West Interconnected System, enabling households and businesses to actively participate in and benefit from the energy transition.

As the project progresses, new solar and battery systems connected to WA’s main electricity network will be capable of participating in a virtual power plant, giving customers the opportunity to earn more value from their energy assets. This is expected to support continued uptake of rooftop solar and battery storage – offering WA households and small businesses greater flexibility and benefits from their household energy assets.

How Energy Policy WA plays a role

Each Project Jupiter partner plays a unique and pivotal role, ensuring the project's smooth advancement, while effectively addressing the needs of the energy market and its participants.

Energy Policy WA’s role focuses specifically on developing policy and regulations that are informed by the insights and information provided by project partners and other stakeholders, as well as offering strategic policy input on various actions led by them.

Energy Policy WA key actions include:

• Defining the role and responsibility of a DER Data Coordinator, who will provide and maintain one dedicated place that logs all small business and household energy and storage assets.
• Developing new regulations to support an improved compliance framework and renewed installation, connections, and commissioning processes.
• Introducing changes to the Western Power Access Regime to facilitate integration of solar, batteries, and related technologies to better support network and power system operations.
• Creating policy on the application of flexible network connections to ensure a fair and reasonable value position for residents supporting the network, while strengthening ongoing growth in rooftop solar. This will help secure the energy grid, with the intention of providing more value for consumer energy assets.