Start with the local evidence
Before adjusting costs or deciding what a site should do, look at the public context already prepared for the planning environment. The evidence view lets you choose one of 547 local government areas and see ABS population and SEIFA context alongside the checked source library.
Explore the prepared public evidence
These figures describe an area, not an individual person. They are a starting point for local discussion, never an eligibility or need score.
What this lab does
This page hosts a set of interactive models that run entirely in your browser:
- Financial model — an integrated ten-year model of community-scale infrastructure: assumptions, scenario drivers, a three-tier portfolio, consolidated forecast and valuation, evaluated live; every figure recomputes when you change an input.
- Solar & battery — daily energy balance: how much a PV array generates, how much a battery can store and deliver, what loads are covered, and what surplus remains for other applications.
- Water & thermal — daily energy demand for pumping, reverse-osmosis potable water production, and water heating—with optional solar hot-water collectors and a sand-battery thermal store that shift demand off the electric system.
The workbench is a pipeline: the site planner tab sizes a real ground — loads, roof segments, storage, EV, microgrid, datacentre or a greenfield build — and its outputs feed the solar, water and financial tabs; each run can be filed into the report, which exports as a single PDF.
Use the tabs to scope each model to a community, region or application, then add each run to the report. Export produces a single PDF covering all modelling done.
Read this before relying on any output. The financial model is a preliminary evaluation draft prepared with generative-AI assistance; it carries the status "CALCS PASS; PRELIMINARY DRAFT / EVIDENCE GAPS". Many inputs are placeholders awaiting market quotes, site data and independent review. The solar and water calculators are engineering first-pass estimators, not designs. Figures in AUD / kWh as marked.
Workbench
Size the site first — demand, solar, storage, cost, savings and income feed the solar and water tabs, the financial model, and the exportable report.
Choose the scenario that fits — a grid-connected upgrade, a resilience hub built to run a surplus, a community microgrid across local buildings, a digital cooperative running a community datacentre, or a greenfield site designed from the ground up — then three steps: the site, its loads, and the solar & storage build. Switching scenario resets the load and roof rows to a typical starting set; everything stays editable — match a real ground's figures and the results update live. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere. From here, Send site inputs to the models carries the numbers into the solar, water and financial tabs, and Add this site build to the report files the run for PDF export.
Step 1 — The site today
Click the map to set the site's location — the planner rates its solar exposure by month from BOM data. Then set the existing electricity position: the quarterly bill gives a baseline load the upgrades build on.
Monthly mean daily solar exposure (BOM AWAP) ÷ 3.6 ≈ peak sun hours. The map needs a connection — the fields stay editable.
Demographics size the supported-accommodation duty below — and feed the financial model's regional population driver on send.
Step 2 — What the site runs
Amenities & buildings (kW × hours/day each — h/day can average across the week for intermittent loads like oval lights):
Water treatment — if the site's supply isn't potable and needs processing (leave at 0 kL/day for town/mains water):
EV charging — a new service and a new revenue line, but a heavy load:
Step 3 — Solar & storage
Roof segments — one row per roof face. For exact segment areas, azimuths and pitches, the Google Solar API's buildingInsights endpoint returns them from satellite data; or measure footprints on the map / from aerial photos and enter them here (orientation matters more than pitch):
Compute workloads on the coop — always-on jobs join the guaranteed load (and the cooling overhead); surplus-only jobs are deferrable — they run when generation exceeds the baseline:
Decision scorecard
| Dimension | Indicator | Actual | Threshold | Status | Interpretation |
|---|
10-year consolidated forecast
Assumptions editor
Every scenario driver in the financial model, grouped by category. Edits are highlighted; leave a field blank or reset the model to return to the baseline.
Calculation integrity checks
| Season | Generation (kWh/day) | Direct daytime use | To battery | From battery (delivered) | Unmet load | Exportable surplus | Load coverage |
|---|
| Subsystem | Basis | Energy (kWh/day) | Type |
|---|
The report accumulates each modelling run you add — financial scenarios, solar & battery sizing, water & thermal demand — into a single exportable record. Entries are stored in this browser's web storage and content-hashed.
Where your data lives & what to trust
Local by default. Saved models and report entries live in your browser's web storage on this device—nothing is transmitted to a server. When the qualiaDB WASM runtime (v0.0.39) is available it provides the BLAKE3 content hash stamped on each report entry and the PDF report, so an exported result can be verified against exactly the inputs that produced it; otherwise a SHA-256 fallback is used. Export JSON to move a financial model between devices or share it.
PDF export uses your browser's print pipeline—choose "Save as PDF". The report compiles every accumulated entry (each with its inputs, results, timestamp and content hash) plus the financial model's current state and its own status line.
Honest limits
- The financial engine reproduces its baseline values exactly (all 5,811 formulas verified), but the model itself is a draft: evidence gaps are flagged in the calculation-integrity checks.
- Solar & battery figures are daily energy balances—generation, storage throughput, coverage and surplus—not hour-by-hour dispatch or a system design. Site shading, panel orientation, seasonal derating and tariff structures need proper engineering.
- Water & thermal uses standard specific-energy figures (pump hydraulics, RO specific energy consumption, thermal mass heating). Sand-battery and solar hot-water options are scenario switches, not product selections.
- Percent fields are edited as percents; currency fields as whole AUD. Scenario columns are Downside / Base / Upside.
- "Define your scope" resizes demand and funding drivers—it does not re-site infrastructure, re-quote vendor costs, or validate legal structures for a different jurisdiction.
- Saved models and report entries are yours alone: clearing site data deletes them. Export anything you want to keep.