SYDNEY, Feb. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Smart Energy Council (SEC) is pleased to announce that GoodWe, a global leader in solar inverter and energy storage technology, has joined the organization as an Executive Member, further strengthening collaboration and leadership across Australia's renewable energy sector.
This Executive Membership formalizes and deepens that long-standing relationship at a strategic level, according to SEC's announcement.
In addition to its Executive Membership, GoodWe has also signed on as the Smart Installer Patron, reinforcing their commitment to installer education, quality, and best practice across the solar and storage industry.
GoodWe has been a partner of the Smart Energy Council since 2017, working closely with the organization across industry initiatives, events, education programs, and international engagement to support the development of solar and energy storage markets.
A key milestone in this enduring collaboration came in 2022, when John Grimes, Chief Executive of the Smart Energy Council, launched the industry-first SEC Roadshow Vehicle. Designed as a mobile sales, networking, and training platform, the roadshow has since become an essential information resource for both industry professionals and consumers. The initiative also marked the launch of GoodWe's EcoSmart Kids educational program, aimed at inspiring and educating the next generation about renewable energy and sustainability.
In 2025, SEC had a delegation visit to GoodWe's headquarters in China during the company's 15-year anniversary celebrations, gaining firsthand insight into the scale of GoodWe's global operations and the pace of smart energy innovation, and acknowledging how the company has evolved far beyond its origins as an inverter manufacturer.
"At GoodWe, we believe that the transition to a clean energy future depends on collaboration, leadership, and vision. Few organizations embody those values more strongly than the Smart Energy Council," said Dean Williamson, Country Manager at GoodWe.
Today, GoodWe delivers inverters, batteries and energy storage systems, heat pumps, EV charging products, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), and smart energy management solutions. Many of these technologies are fully embedded into its the company's own operations, such as its global headquarters and manufacturing facilities, serving as real-world showcase of innovation.
"Over the years, we have had the pleasure of forging a strong relationship with the SEC and their amazing team through activities, events and innovative endeavours and their unwavering support has meant a lot to us, that's why we are extremely proud to not only become an Executive level member, but also a Smart Energy Patron. We look forward to an exciting future ahead as we continue to support the SEC's work to drive Australia's clean energy future," Dean Williamson added.
"GoodWe's commitment to innovation, education, and industry collaboration aligns strongly with the Smart Energy Council's mission," said John Grimes, CEO of the Smart Energy Council. "We are delighted to welcome GoodWe as an Executive Member and look forward to expanding our work together to accelerate Australia's clean energy transition."
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GoodWe Joins the Smart Energy Council as Executive Member
HANGZHOU, China, April 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A team led by principal investigators Bobo Dang and Ting Zhou at Westlake University/Westlake Laboratory reported in Science a high-throughput platform for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. Their work, titled "A high-throughput selection system for fast-acting covalent protein drugs," opens new avenues for next-generation biologics.
Covalent small-molecule drugs have shown great success in cancer therapy by forming irreversible bonds with their targets. This has inspired efforts to extend covalent strategies to protein therapeutics, especially engineered miniproteins. However, their development is limited by a kinetic mismatch: Miniproteins are rapidly cleared in vivo, whereas covalent bond formation is typically slow. In addition, high-throughput platforms for systematically optimizing covalent protein reactivity have been lacking.
To address this challenge, the researchers proposed that precise spatial positioning of chemical warheads within protein scaffolds could enable molecular preorganization, thereby accelerating covalent bond formation without increasing intrinsic reactivity (Fig. 1).
Based on this concept, the team developed a high-throughput platform that combines yeast surface display with chemoselective protein modification to screen diverse crosslinkers and millions of protein variants. By optimizing warhead placement and the local chemical environment, the platform enables rapid and irreversible target engagement.
Using this platform, the researchers developed a covalent antagonist targeting PD-L1, termed IB101. Structural analysis revealed that IB101 forms a defined binding pocket that precisely positions the warhead in a reactive conformation, greatly accelerating covalent bond formation. Functionally, IB101 effectively blocks the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway and demonstrates strong antitumor activity in mouse models. Notably, despite its short in vivo half-life, IB101 achieves durable target engagement and tumor suppression, outperforming conventional antibody-based therapies under comparable conditions.
The platform was further applied to cytokine engineering, leading to the development of a covalent IL-18 variant, IB201. This engineered cytokine rapidly forms a covalent interaction with its receptor, enhancing signaling strength and duration. In vivo studies showed that IB201 induces potent antitumor immune responses without detectable systemic toxicity. These results highlight the potential of covalent engineering to improve the efficacy and safety of cytokine-based therapies.
Beyond immunotherapy targets, the platform was also applied to develop a covalent inhibitor targeting the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2. This molecule achieves durable viral neutralization, demonstrating the versatility of the approach across different therapeutic modalities.
This study establishes a general strategy for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. By enabling covalent bond formation on timescales compatible with rapid in vivo clearance, the platform overcomes a fundamental limitation in the field.
These findings provide a new framework for designing biologics with both rapid kinetics and sustained target engagement, with broad implications for cancer immunotherapy, antiviral therapy, and beyond.
Media Contact:
Chi Zhang
media@westlake.edu.cn
+86-15659837873
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Fast-Acting Covalent Protein Drugs From a New High-Throughput Platform
