The Government is now operating in accordance with the Caretaker Conventions, pending the outcome of the 2022 federal election. Info on Caretaker Conventions: https://www.pmc.gov.au/caretaker
Solving the Energy Puzzle – Introducing our new podcast series
We know that the price of solar panels and wind turbines has plummeted – but they can’t power the grid alone. Over six episodes, our podcast will bring together innovators, industry, energy sectors and policymakers to explore the projects filling in the gaps to provide a reliable and affordable supply of energy.
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In each episode, you will hear from a range of energy experts – Dr Alan Finkel (Australia’s Chief Scientist), Audrey Zibelman (CEO of the Australian Energy Market Operator), Kristina Haverkamp (Managing Director of the German Energy Agency) and Anna Skarbek (CEO of Climateworks). ARENA’s CEO Darren Miller is a constant companion. Along with innovators from some of the most exciting ARENA projects, our guests will share insights into Australia’s energy landscape and some future trends to look out for.
We will explore a range of topics – the role of large-scale storage in balancing the grid, the transition to a consumer-driven energy system, and the electric vehicle revolution driving us to a more sustainable transport system.
We will look at the state of Australia’s hydrogen industry. With demand for hydrogen projected to grow strongly as countries like Japan and South Korea seek to decarbonise their energy systems, we ask the experts what an Australian hydrogen industry would look like and how we can kick start it.
Outside of the electricity sector, the transition to renewables is just beginning. We take a look at how mining operations, manufacturers, food producers and other energy intensive industries are improving their efficiency and embracing renewables.
You made the first two seasons of ReWired a massive success, and inspired us to share more of the important stories about Australia’s shift to renewable energy.
We hope you enjoy these stories and learn something new. Listen and subscribe via your podcast channel of choice above.
Wind turbine, solar and battery combination at Flinders Island
Thanks to a $5.5 million investment from ARENA, Hydro Tasmania has launched an innovative Hybrid Energy Hub consisting of a wind turbine, solar and battery that aims to reduce diesel use by 60 percent at Flinders Island.
In this series finale of The Innovators, we pay a visit to Flinders Island as the community takes another step towards self-reliance and prepares to make a shift from traditional diesel generation to dispatchable renewables.
The hub is a testing ground for a new form of modularised technology – the equipment is all housed in shipping containers that were pre-assembled and shipped to the island – and aims to cut blackouts dramatically, but many locals still remember the days of low-voltage diesel generators and kerosene stoves.
“You couldn’t run the toaster and the kettle at the same time,” says Kate Mooney. “I still take a torch to bed.”
Mooney works at Bowman’s store, one of the island’s oldest continuous businesses. It is mostly a newsagency now, run by third-generation shopkeeper Lois Ireland.
Ireland grew up in the shop, quite literally: it is inside the house her parents made and through the kitchen, in the old lounge, she’s created a history room filled with relics from her family’s past. Old flour packets, an ornate calculating scale, even a ladies’ girdle.
“The history of Bowman’s follows the history of Flinders Island itself,” she says.
It was only in 1984 that the switch was flicked on a centralised diesel generator to bring power to the whole island but today, a small electric car driving down the main street of its main town, Whitemark, hints at the future vision that this community of less than 1000 people has for itself.
The Clean, Green Airport Shuttle is just one of the initiatives Flinders Island locals have taken up. Others can be seen spinning on a rise pointing west, overlooking the less-than-romantically named Trouser Point. There, Hydro Tasmania’s new 900 kilowatt wind turbine stands above three, smaller, privately-owned turbines that have been feeding energy into the local grid for years.
Further down on Thule Road is the hub itself, where a 200 kW solar array, 750 kW/300 kWh battery, 850 kVA flywheel, and 1.5 MW dynamic resistor recently hit 83 hours straight of renewable generation.
For Aronn Daw, who came to Flinders Island to work for Hydro Tasmania as a 19-year-old and has since made a life and family there, the hub’s success so far is a source of great pride
“It’s a real good thing for the future and the young kids who live here to have something to brag about.”
Listen to the full episode of The Innovators for a further in-depth conversation with Ray Massie, manager of Hybrid Energy Operations at Hydro Tasmania, hosted by Adam Morton.
The Innovators podcast: An engineer’s party of one
There was the careers advisor at high school who told her that “girls don’t do engineering” and the lecturer on her first day of university who said that by the end of their degree only 30 percent of the class would graduate – and most wouldn’t be female.
Not to mention the assumptions she’s stared down since becoming an electrical engineer, correcting people that yes, the project engineer is a she, and that yes, she has ideas worth listening to.
And in the world of energy, where it’s estimated women make up only 20 percent of the workforce and only 6 percent of its leaders, it can often feel like she’s in a pretty select group. Sometimes a group not much bigger than one.
“I’ve always been doing things that others have not wanted to do, and I’ve always been trying to make changes that others have not wanted to make,” the Telstra Energy engineer says.
“Patriarchal society is alive and kicking anywhere we go and I think that it needs to change. If that needs to change in an industry that is very much needing female perspective, then so be it, I want to be part of that change.”
Telstra Energy’s Nada Kalam on the panel at the launch of the Business of Renewables report. IMAGE: ARENA
This episode of The Innovators explores a recognised issue within the energy sector: women’s representation. Earlier this year, ARENA signed up to a Women in Renewables leadership pledge which acknowledges more work is needed to ensure greater numbers of women in powerful positions within the industry.
The 28-year-old Kalam speaks eloquently about her experiences pushing past roadblocks as she’s pursued a career in engineering and, as an energy systems engineer with Telstra, we also get an insight into how one of Australia’s largest energy consumers is using renewable technology to fortify its assets and reduce energy costs.
Listen to the full episode of The Innovators for this insightful conversation, hosted by Adam Morton.
Episode one, featuring PowerLedger co-founder Jemma Green, can be found here, episode two, with the Melbourne academics who invented a hyrdogen-generating solar paint is here, episode three, with social entrepreneur and Clean Energy Innovation Fund manager Katerina Kimmorley is here while episode four, with GreenSync’s Bruce Thompson, is here.
This article was originally written by Dewi Cooke, Writer.
We see you, Bermuda! The world tunes in to The Innovators
Our aim was to bring you up close and personal with some of the inspiring people who are doing brilliant work, leading the change as we transition to a renewable energy future.
We sought out fascinating people who are working in the nation’s top research labs, financing world-leading renewable projects and creating buzzworthy startups that investors are flocking to.
Host Adam Morton has joined these guests for engaging and informative chats about what drives them and their hopeful vision for the future.
We’ve already been downloaded thousands of times, by people in 60 countries from Argentina to Zambia and just about everywhere in between. We’re in Poland and Peru, Malaysia and Morocco, Singapore and Slovenia.
(A big shoutout to our two listeners in Bermuda; we’d be happy to visit for a live recording someday soon).
And this week we are thrilled to have been selected by Apple Podcasts for their “New & Noteworthy” feature slot.
It’s a prized piece of podcast real estate and it shows that ReWired: The Innovators is making its mark.
If you’ve been listening, we can’t thank you enough. And if you’re yet to give it a try, here’s what some of our fans are saying on iTunes, where The Innovators is averaging a five-star review…
“Love these podcasts. They help me retain optimism in these mad times. It is so good to hear so much innovation, about incredibly talented people and their amazing works.”
Sqawkin
“Finally! An awesome and engaging way to learn about the renewable energy initiatives in Australia… you’re a legend.”
Geormae
“One good news story after another! Australia is creating a new energy sector and renewed economy with each new project. Great stuff!”
Grass Fed
“I enjoy this podcast and use it to keep updated on new innovations. It’s nice, also, to hear that our government, universities and some businesses are actually doing something to help our environment.”
IMACPEN
This article was originally written by Daniel Silkstone, Writer, former Head of Content, ARENA.
But 20 years ago, Thompson was just a keen-eyed engineering student concerned about the environment and “this thing called climate change”. A former activist and executive at the Moreland Energy Foundation Limited (MEFL), he’s been able to ride the public’s wave of interest in issues that were once considered fringe and are now mainstream, ever since. These days he’s at energy software company GreenSync and is helping drive Australia’s first open, digital marketplace for renewable energy, dEx.
In this episode of The Innovators, Thompson tells host Adam Morton what he learned from his days as a community campaigner in Australia’s Top End, his work rolling out grassroots community renewable projects with MEFL and how he applies it all to his current role as head of product strategy at a company with a bold vision to build an entirely decentralised marketplace for energy.
“There needs to be that balance of responding to things that are seen as inappropriate or unsustainable…but also being able to present an alternative, a credible alternative to that,” he says. “One of the very big questions that we have and we’re still having to this day, is the debate about, ‘Well, does the alternative work?’.”
Thompson jokes that GreenSync is really good at “turning things on and off” but this idea of virtual power plants, of a connected network of batteries and stored power that can be used to supplement and stabilise the needs of the grid, is an important part of the energy system of the future. Large utility players recognise it too and GreenSync have signed up United Energy and ActewAGL to its pilot, backed by ARENA.
“I think in the industry there’s a phenomenal shift in understanding that we need to look towards the future.”
Hear more about Thompson’s work with GreenSync, dEx and the potential for behind-the-metre technology in this episode of The Innovators.
Episode one, featuring PowerLedger co-founder Jemma Green, can be found here, episode two, with the Melbourne academics who invented a hyrdogen-generating solar paint, is here and episode three, with social entrepreneur and Clean Energy Innovation Fund manager Katerina Kimmorley is here.
This article was originally written by Dewi Cooke, Writer.
Spending on poles and wires pushes up your electricity bill. It doesn’t have to be that way
As a consumer, when you look at your monthly power bill, between 40 and 55 per cent of the total amount is made up of costs associated with the transmission and distribution network, according to the Australian Energy Market Commission.
And as the infrastructure in our cities and major markets ages that price is likely to increase.
Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney, led by Dr Chris Dunstan have argued that the current regulatory framework means that building new grid infrastructure is often more profitable for network businesses than introducing demand management solutions that encourage people to use less energy, even when doing so would reduce costs to consumers.
The ARENA-funded research from Dr Dunstan’s team has been instrumental in bringing about a change to market rules that will come into effect in 2019 and should encourage the use of demand management when it is the most suitable option.
But a new project being funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) aims to demonstrate, ahead of those changes, a real-life implementation of that approach by fast-tracking the integration of rooftop solar and battery storage with the broader electricity market.
And a handful of Melbourne residents will be the guinea pigs leading the charge.
ARENA is providing $450,000 for United Energy to trial behind-the-meter residential solar and storage in Melbourne this summer.
The $1.23 million trial will demonstrate if harnessing the capability of residential solar and storage systems can defer the need for costly upgrades to the distribution network, leading to a better deal for consumers.
ARENA chief executive Ivor Frischknecht said that solar and storage technology could reduce the need to build new grid infrastructure.
“This trial will show how solar and storage could play a key role in future energy infrastructure, easing pressure on the distribution network and reducing network costs for consumers,” Mr Frischknecht said.
United Energy will install 4kW of solar and battery storage systems in 42 households across seven of the most constrained substations across United Energy’s network in Melbourne’s south eastern suburbs and the Mornington Peninsula.
These are substations where the ability to meet demand is most difficult to manage.
The systems will provide 4kW solar/13.2 kWh storage per site, creating 160kW solar and 554 kWh storage in total.
OUR NEW PODCAST, THE INNOVATORS, HAS ARRIVED. HERE’S A SNEAK PEEK
At times of peak demand, when the substation is struggling to deliver the amount of electricity required, homes participating in the trial will automatically switch from receiving electricity from the grid to receiving it from their battery.
That should remove load from the substation and allow a greater balance between supply and demand, making for a more stable network.
While the ability of solar-linked battery storage to play this role should be relatively clearcut, network operators need to learn how such a system would work, get used to working with it and develop confidence that it can play a larger role in the future.
This trial will provide an opportunity to demonstrate that ability to meet network reliability requirements and help network operators to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
United Energy’s Network Planning and Strategy Manager Rodney Bray said solar and battery storage technology would change the way utilities plan their grid infrastructure.
“As battery prices fall in the future, solar coupled with storage has the potential to become an economically feasible alternative to traditional, costly network augmentation,” he said.
The funding has been awarded under ARENA’s Advancing Renewables program which supports a broad range of development, demonstration and pre-commercial deployment projects that can deliver affordable and reliable renewable energy for Australian families and businesses.
The UTS review found that incentives were needed in order to encourage network operators to look for demand side savings.The partnership between ARENA and United Energy is a practical example of a sustainable solution to maintain network reliability while reducing the need to invest in expensive new infrastructure.
This article was originally written by Daniel Silkstone, former Head of Content, ARENA.
From helping to deliver solar power in India to steering the $200 million Clean Energy Innovation Fund, the Sydney-sider is privy to the latest technologies and ideas bubbling up within renewable energy, ideas that could dramatically affect how we use and think about electricity.
“It’s an incredibly exciting future for us here in Australia,” she says. “We’re about to embark on probably the biggest change since the industrial revolution in our energy system and it’s going to be very, very omnipresent for us.”
The innovation fund uses finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in innovative clean energy companies and projects, drawing on the combined skills and experience of the CEFC and ARENA.
In episode three of ARENA’s podcast, ReWired: The Innovators, Kimmorley talks with host Adam Morton about the journey that took her from working in the slum communities of India to the world of venture capital and clean energy start-ups.
She pinpoints her transformation to a single moment: In 2012, while flying over the twinkling lights of New Delhi, India, she saw it all suddenly go dark. Entire cities across the country were hit by what she later learned was one of the world’s largest power blackouts, affecting more than 700 million people.
What really struck her, though, was that this was already a way of life for the millions living in urban slum communities.
“Half of those people…don’t actually have access to electricity every night. And that wasn’t on the front page of every paper,” she tells podcast host Adam Morton. “That was the real reason to return to India and to see what we could do to solve the problem.”
Kimmorley finished her studies at the London School of Economics and co-founded Pollinate Energy, a social enterprise which today continues to deliver solar power in India. The change she helped deliver through Pollinate was real and tangible, as people were quite literally brought into the light.
But in 2016 she returned to Australia to work with the CEFC’s innovation fund in a move that she believes will help her have an impact on an even larger scale.
“I really felt that if we could start to mobilise that capital…to really drive innovation in clean tech and rapidly distribute those innovations across the developing world, as well as in Australia, that we would have a mammoth impact on the clean energy revolution,” she says.
To find out more about where Kimmorley sees investment moving in the future as well as innovation fund-backed projects such as Melbourne start-up Relectrify, tune in to episode three of The Innovators on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Episode one, featuring PowerLedger co-founder Jemma Green, while episode two, with the Melbourne academics who invented a hyrdogen-generating solar paint.
This article was originally written by Dewi Cooke, Writer.
And that’s precisely what saved the work of Dr Torben Daeneke and one of his students, when a months-long project into developing a hydrogen gas sensor failed.
“Our sensors were not functioning properly and the student came to me at some point and said, “Look, whatever I do I get this random result,” Daeneke recalls in episode two of ARENA’s new podcast, ReWired: The Innovators. The pair investigated, bringing distinguished professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh into the fold, and established that the synthetic material they were working with, a substance called molybdenum sulphide, was reacting to moisture in the air.
“We realised this strong absorption was unusual, extraordinary,” Kalantar-Zadeh says.
(L-R) RMIT’S Kourosh Kalantar Zadeh and Torben Daeneke with their solar paint. IMAGE: Supplied
They were faced with a challenge: what else could they do with this substance to make it useful? And this is where a story that seemed headed for failure makes a distinct pivot towards success.
In this episode of The Innovators, Daeneke and Kalantar-Zadeh join host Adam Morton for an in-depth discussion into the steps – forwards and back – that lead to their eventual invention of a hydrogen-producing solar paint, and what its future applications might be.
Molybdenum sulphide-based materials are known to be useful catalysts for splitting hydrogen from oxygen in water and Daeneke, who has a background in electrical solar cells, wondered whether it could somehow have a solar application. Once they decided to change tack, the team moved quickly and mixed the substance with titanium oxide, a common ingredient of sunscreen and cosmetics, to make the paint.
“What happens when this titanium oxide absorbs light is that it creates, essentially, an electrochemical voltage inside these particles. So it’s acting like a miniature solar panel,” Daeneke says.
Although still very much in its infancy, their research into using the water found in air moisture manages to simplify what has until now been a comparatively energy-intensive process.
“This is actually the joy and pleasure in the lab; that we see something (and) we just randomly move our direction towards that. It’s exciting,” Kalantar Zadeh says.
To hear more about the project and the potential for hydrogen as a renewable energy source, subscribe to episode two of ReWired: The Innovators, hosted by Adam Morton. Or catch up on episode one, featuring PowerLedger co-founder and chair, Jemma Green.
This article was originally written by Dewi Cooke, Writer.
How a Perth company created the world’s most advanced wave energy device
And for an island nation, surrounded by oceans, it’s an idea that holds hugely-exciting potential.
Perth-based Carnegie Clean Energy has long been at the forefront of wave energy worldwide. Last month, the company announced plans for a new wave energy project as well as a National Wave Energy Research Centre at Albany, on the Western Australian coast.
That project, more than five years in the planning, relies on $15.75 million of recently-announced funding from the Western Australian Government and also involves reallocating ARENA funding of $11.6 million, which is committed to foster design and testing of a new, innovative piece of technology that has been kept under wraps until now.
The company has now proudly unveiled that latest advance in the attempt to make clean, renewable energy from the regular and unrelenting force of Australia’s waves.
It is, Carnegie says, the most advanced wave energy device anywhere in the world. And it will generate far more electricity than its predecessor.
“As other renewable technologies become more cost competitive, we need to continue to drive innovation into CETO and be prepared to disrupt our own thinking,” Carnegie Chief Executive Dr Michael Ottaviano said.
“Wave energy is the last globally untapped renewable resource and in the best locations it delivers energy 24/7.
“By effectively harnessing the massive untapped resource in waves and converting it to energy, this technology will be game changing.”
How it works
Carnegie will design, manufacture and install an updated CETO 6 unit offshore from Albany during the 2019/2020 summer.
Named after a Greek sea goddess, CETO is the Australian company’s proprietary system, which has been developed over more than a decade, through several iterations. The company holds more than 140 patents involving the technology that makes up each unit.
A new US patent was issued for the CETO 6 in early November.
From a distance, as it bobs up and down and pitches sideways with the tide, the new CETO 6 unit looks like giant robotic jellyfish. In reality, it is a fully submerged buoy (known as a Buoyant Actuator). While previous versions have been tethered to a pump on the seabed, the updated CETO 6 will have its pump inbuilt, resulting in a much larger unit with a diameter of 20 metres.
Carnegie’s CETO 5 device, which was installed and commissioned in late 2014 was also supported by ARENA under the Perth Wave Energy Project (PWEP).
That project was the first array of offshore wave power generators to be connected to an electricity grid anywhere in the world and completed 14,000 cumulative operating hours, the highest ever recorded in the global wave energy industry.
The combination of improvements, including the inbuilt pump and a change in the way the unit is anchored to the sea bed means that power production will be greatly enhanced. The new CETO 6 will have a nominal capacity of 1.5MW, as opposed to the 1MW capacity of its predecessor.
Moor for your money
Previous incarnations of Carnegie’s technology featured a single tether line that is fixed to a single mooring on the sea floor.
The updated CETO 6 features a revamped design with multiple moorings. It has long been understood that wave energy convertors with multiple moorings would be more efficient energy producers because they can capture energy in heave (vertical), surge (horizontal) and pitch (rotational) motions rather than simply by moving up and down.
But creating a device with multiple moorings has proved challenging due to the additional costs associated with each foundation. Carnegie has created an innovative solution featuring ‘networked’ moorings that can have multiple devices to be tethered to them.
The multiple mooring points of the CET6 are a significant advance. IMAGE: Carnegie.
Modelling
The other great breakthrough in the new design comes from a greater understanding of how the units move in the water so as to maximinse their efficiency. Carnegie has devoted significant resources to becoming a world leader in this area, developing state-of-the-art hydrodynamic modelling capabilities.
The company has used Perth’s Pawsey Supercomputer to run more than 20 billion simulations during the past year, an unprecedented amount of analysis that has given birth to a new device with world-leading hydrodynamic design.
Carnegie has big plans for wave energy, saying it ultimately hopes to locate a 100MW wave farm on the site. To begin with, production will be more modest, with a 1.5MW updated CETO 6 installed initially and plans to scale up to a 20 MW array as a next step.
OUR NEW PODCAST, THE INNOVATORS, IS OUT NOW. HERE’S A SNEAK PEEK
What they’re saying about our new podcast, Rewired: The Innovators…
It’s a six-part series that features interviews with some of the most interesting people in renewable energy. Some of them are working on ARENA-sponsored projects, some of them aren’t.
All of them are pushing us forward into a renewable energy future.
In the first episode, host Adam Morton met PowerLedger founder Jemma Green and discussed the big plans her company has for peer to peer trading of energy using blockchain technology.
A new episode will be out on Thursday but you can make sure you never miss out by checking out episode 1 and subscribing at the link below.
The response has been tremendous, with people downloading The Innovators at a faster rate than any podcast we’ve ever made.
We’re delighted to be averaging a five-star review on iTunes. And social media has been abuzz with people talking about the podcast. Here’s what they are saying about it (and If you haven’t got on board yet there’s still plenty of time).
“Just listened to the latest ARENA podcast. An interview with Dr Jemma Green, co-founder of PowerLedger. Brilliant interview, and answered a lot of the questions I had around the whole peer to peer energy trading space. Strongly recommend you take the time to listen to it. A podcast series well worth subscribing to.” Wayne Pales, Energy Consultant and Demand Response expert.
“ARENA is doing some amazing work in making the complex energy markets, and the startups playing in it, accessible to one and all. I’m loving listening to their podcast on my way to/from work!”
