Australia’s leading event on smart and sustainable lighting strategies is nearly here. The Australian Smart Lighting Summit 2013 will be held on 5 and 6 August at the Melbourne Convention Centre. [ + ]

NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley has today announced his retirement after four years in the role. Quigley, who came out of retirement to become NBN Co’s founding CEO, will continue to serve as CEO until the Board appoints his successor. [ + ]

Electricity Gas Australia 2013, released by the Energy Supply Association of Australia, has revealed planning and investment in new power stations began shifting towards renewable energy from 2007. [ + ]

Master Electricians Australia is offering a new mentoring program to help small businesses in the construction industry by providing free mentoring and training in business management for electrical contractors. [ + ]

Standards Australia has released the Interim Standard AS 5389 (Int) - 2013 Solar heating and cooling systems - Calculation of energy consumption. [ + ]

Efficient cooling is a major challenge in many different applications, such as LED lights, automotive electronics, power electronics, computers and radio base stations. An international group of researchers has shown that graphene has a heat-dissipating effect on silicon-based electronics. [ + ]

Power and automation technology group ABB has been selected by Fastned to supply chargers to more than 200 electric vehicle fast-charging stations in the Netherlands, bringing an EV fast charger within 50 kms of all of the country’s 16.7 million inhabitants. [ + ]

The Australian Cablemakers Association (ACA) has launched a new website focused on the cable manufacturing industry, workplace health and safety issues, cable quality and non-compliant and counterfeit cables. [ + ]

Clipsal by Schneider Electric’s C-Bus eDLT wall switch has been awarded a ‘Design Award’ as part of the Australian International Design Awards in the category of Hardware and Building. [ + ]

Master Electricians Australia has welcomed the Queensland State Coroner’s recommendation that the Queensland Government consider making safety switches compulsory on every circuit in every home. [ + ]

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has committed $50 million in Energy Efficiency Loans (EELs) to help businesses improve their energy productivity. [ + ]

An energy-efficiency grant could help Australian fruit growers reduce their costs by up to 20%. APAL has received $636,970 in funding as part of the Energy Efficiency Information Grants Program. [ + ]

Consortium partners GE Australia and New Zealand and Downer EDI have been awarded contracts to work on stage one of the Boco Rock Wind Farm, providing engineering, procurement and construction services for the $350 million project. [ + ]

eMeter has completed a 50 million meter benchmark test, which means its EnergyIP Smart Grid Application Platform can provide utilities of any size with the energy consumption analytics required for risk-free growth. [ + ]

Schneider Electric has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Datacenter Infrastructure Management (DCIM) 2013 Vendor Analysis for the second year in a row. [ + ]