The common saying - and it's not always meant as a compliment - is that when the sun don't shine, then solar farms don't produce any power. And the general assumption is that everything at a solar farm is either switched off, or lies dormant, once the sun goes down.

But not at the country's newest large scale solar farm, the 60MW Chichester solar hub in the Pilbara, where the developers have found - possibly for the first time in the country - they can use the inverters at the facility to deliver voltage control at night for the local grid.

The reason this is being done here is the unique positioning of the solar farm in what is a remote grid, but the use of solar inverters as a means of voltage control, even when the sun don't shine, may have benefits for bigger grids as they seek to manage the rapid transition from fossil fuels and synchronous generators.