With a Commonwealth MoU in hand and a ‘flexible’ attitude to the regulatory processes governing transmission build in Australia’s National Electricity Market, the NSW Department of Planning and Environment is revving up its plans to develop a demonstrator Renewable Energy Zone.

You’ll recall that in 2019, an Australian National University Study identified 22,000 potential pumped-hydro energy storage sites across Australia. Altura Group, is proposing development of three east-coast sites that are also close to strong transmission connections, abundant renewable resources and load centres.

Australia’s distributed energy resources — rooftop solar, batteries, smart devices — have become a force to be reckoned with, and AEMO has opened its DER Register to help integrate consumer assets into what is expected to become the world’s most sophisticated two-way energy market.

“We need 16 GW of storage in the NEM to complement the renewable generation coming in,” said former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at a renewable energy conference this week. And in one sense, that’s all you need to know…

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, cyber threats to critical infrastructure were listed as a top ten global threat and many experts believe that an attack on Australian energy infrastructure is a case of ‘when’ not ‘if’. Here are my thoughts on how to get ahead of this challenge as the growth in distributed rooftop solar PV systems also expands the ‘surface area’ vulnerable to attack.

Many more renewable generators than originally thought are in a holding pattern as a result of oscillation problems in the weak-grid, high-resource area known as the West Murray. State Governments, AEMO and the renewables industry have hunkered down to find solutions that will also find application elsewhere in the grid as connection fever mounts.

The debate now stewing in the Australian Parliament around the viability and cost of setting a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 is again proving a case of too little vision applied too late. A new forum casts all participants as “leaders” and as it seeks to accelerate emissions reduction opportunities today.

Resilience is measured by the ability to adapt to a changing environment. This includes the capacity to prepare for and reduce the impact caused by disruptive events and the ability to recover rapidly. How can we better plan to maintain continuous supply of energy during and after an incident?

Over the past week renewable energy developers and major investors have told the Smart Energy Council that, “They’re done. The sovereign risk in Australia is too great,” says the industry body’s Government Relations Manager, Wayne Smith. With prospects, employment and energy prices in jeopardy, the SEC vows to rattle the corridors of power for a bankable plan.

Between Shepparton and Wangaratta, in rural Victoria, Fotowatio Renewable Ventures’ latest solar project will soon tilt its panels to the sun, and fund a research project with the University of Melbourne to explore ways — including regulatory innovation and community empowerment — of accelerating the state’s transition to a sustainable low-carbon future.