The Australian clean energy arm of France-headquartered utility Électricité de France, EDF Renewables Australia, has partnered with Melbourne-based Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) to launch a program to drive innovation for the energy transition.
The program will identify and support startups developing innovative solutions to address key challenges in energy storage technologies, transmission infrastructure, alternative clean fuel developments and the decarbonisation of existing industrial assets.
EDF Australia Chief Executive Officer James Katsikas said the partnership aims to deliver a unique opportunity for startups to work with major industrials and to test these innovative solutions in real-life conditions.
“We spend over $1 billion (USD 66 million) annually on research and development to ensure we remain at the cutting edge of energy innovation,” Katsikas said.
“This partnership enables us to combine that global expertise with local innovation to work alongside dynamic startups and find new and impactful solutions that can accelerate Australia’s energy transition.”
The startups will gain access to EDF’s portfolio of research and development innovation centres that drive advancements in energy transition and sustainability, including the EDF Lab Paris-Saclay focused on low-carbon energy and smart cities.
Director of Swinburne’s Innovative Planet Research Institute Professor Allison Kealy said the partnership will enable shared expertise in technology commercialisation to make meaningful progress in energy storage, transmission and decarbonisation efforts.
“The transition to a sustainable energy future requires bold, innovative thinking and partnerships like this one play a crucial role,” Kealy said.
The partnership is funded by the Melbourne-headquartered Franco-Australian Centre for Energy Transition (FACET), which itself is a partnership co-led by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the French school for energy and health technology (INSTN), and Swinburne and France-based Grenoble Alpes universities.
FACET is also funding research and development in Australia, in skills for the clean economy, a green h2/co2 e-fuel demonstration plant, a transactive demand response and hosting capacity evaluation for community microgrids study, and aqueous polymer hybrid batteries.
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