Everything Electric Sydney, and how to leave with a straight answer

Everything Electric Sydney runs from 18 to 20 September at Sydney Olympic Park. Jonas Li from our team is volunteering with Renew in its Energy Advice Zone on Sunday 20 September, and the residents who bring the right paperwork leave with the most useful answers.

Everything Electric is a home energy and electric vehicle show, and its organisers bill it as the world's number 1. The Sydney edition runs on Friday 18, Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September 2026, from 10am to 5pm each day, at 1 Showground Road, Sydney Olympic Park.¹

It is built for people who are deciding, not people who have already decided. The floor carries companies displaying home energy products and electric vehicles, and the show runs what it describes as the largest electric vehicle test drive experience on the market. A theatre programme runs alongside, with expert-led panel discussions across all 3 days.

There is more than cars and panels. The programme lists a vehicle-to-grid zone, a commercial vehicle zone, a micro-mobility test track, a marine pavilion and activities for children.

Most visitors arrive with one question they have been carrying for months. Should the next dollar go on a battery or on a heat pump. Whether the solar already on the roof is doing what it should. Whether an electric car makes sense on the tariff they are on. A show is the one place those questions can all be asked in a single afternoon, to people who work on the equipment every week.

That is the part worth planning for.

The Energy Advice Zone is the show's own advice feature, sponsored by Ausgrid. Energy experts are on hand throughout the show to answer questions about improving a home.¹

Jonas Li from our team is one of them, on Sunday 20 September. He volunteers with Renew, the not-for-profit that most of the zone's listed experts come from. The show lists Renew's volunteer experts as Dick Clarke, Tracy Graham, Graham Hunt, Jeff Knowles and Jonas Li.

The show lists the topics its experts cover. Heating and cooling. Insulation. Batteries and smart meters. Home electric vehicle charging. Solar panels and solar hot water. Energy bills.

That range matters more than it looks. The best order of work for a home is rarely obvious from inside it. A household weighing up a battery may get more from sealing the house and changing the hot water system first. A household with a new electric car may need a charger and a tariff review before it needs another panel. An advice table that covers all of it can tell you which question comes first.

The zone also runs a programme of 30 minute sessions each day between 10:45am and 3:45pm. The sessions most useful to residents are set out further down, so the day can be planned around them.

A general question gets a general answer. The same question with your own numbers in front of the expert gets an answer about your home.

Nothing here is required. Bring what you have, and a phone with photos is enough for most of it.

The bill is the most useful single page. It shows what you pay for each unit, what you pay just to be connected, and how much you buy across a quarter. Those three numbers decide most of what solar or a battery can change.

Interval data is the second most useful, and the least known. A smart meter records use across the day, and your retailer can usually supply that record on request. It turns a guess about when a household uses power into a record of it.

The switchboard photo saves the most time. Many upgrades are decided at the board, and a photo lets an expert say whether that conversation is likely before anyone visits.

A few questions do most of the work. Each one moves an answer from a range towards your home.

How much of my power do I use while the sun is up. This decides how much of a solar system's output a home keeps rather than exports, and it is the first input to sizing. Size it from the load, not the roof covers that in full.

Which battery incentive, if any, applies to my home. Incentives carry conditions, and a proposal can fall outside them for reasons that are easy to miss. The three NSW battery incentives, and who each one covers, sets them out.

What will the network let me export. Export limits are set by the distributor, not by the installer, and they cap what a system can send back to the grid.

Is my switchboard ready. An older board can add work and cost to a job before a single panel goes up. Why the switchboard decides your solar programme explains what gets checked.

What should a quote carry, when I get one. Compare the assumptions, not the price walks through what to line up before comparing totals.

Write the answers down, or ask the expert to. A conversation remembered on the train home is a conversation half lost.

Name the hard thing first. Nobody at a show can give you an exact figure for your home, and anyone who does is guessing.

An exact figure needs a site visit, your interval data, a look at the switchboard and a network position. None of that is available at a table in a pavilion. Why nobody can quote you an exact figure explains the rest.

A conversation at a show tells you what to measure, not what the measurement is. What it can do is still worth the trip. It can rule options in or out. It can tell you which upgrade to look at first. It can tell you which numbers to collect before asking anyone for a quote, so that the quotes you get are comparable.

It can also tell you what not to buy yet. A battery sized before the load is known, or a charger installed before the board is checked, is a common and avoidable cost.

The Energy Advice Zone is set up for exactly that kind of conversation. It is independent advice, you do not need a quote to get an answer, and you do not need to have decided anything.

The Energy Advice Zone programme runs 5 sessions a day. These are the ones most useful to a household.

Saturday's Ask the experts session is the live question-and-answer format, and it is the one to build a visit around if solar, batteries or a home charger are the question. Sunday carries 3 of the 5 sessions above, and it is the day Jonas is in the zone.

Around the sessions there is the rest of the floor. The electric vehicle test drive experience, the theatre programme and the home energy stands all run across the 3 days.

Getting there is simple by train. Olympic Park station is on the showground's doorstep, and trains run between Lidcombe and Olympic Park every 10 minutes. Parking is available at the showground on a first-come basis.

General admission tickets are $20 to $60. Concession tickets are $15 to $50, for people aged 65 and over, students and Blue Light Card holders. Children aged 15 and under attend free. Cash is not accepted at the event.²

New Ability Energy is an electrical contractor, operating for 10 years across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. We design, install, commission and warrant solar, battery storage and electric vehicle charging, and we hold the contract and the accreditation for every job.

Solar Up, our renewable arm, supplies the equipment. Every system either company sells is installed by our own team.

Jonas is at the show as a Renew volunteer. The advice in the Energy Advice Zone is Renew's independent advice, not a sales pitch for us, and it should stay that way. A proposal only makes sense once the numbers in this article are known.

If the conversation at the show leaves you ready for a proposal, request a quote whenever suits you. A site visit and your interval data come before any firm number does.