I’m delighted to announce that the first edition hardcover hard copies of my kids book Amy’s Balancing Act are now in stock!
You can get signed copies from my online shop and regular copies from all good bookshops (if they don’t yet have them on bookshelves they can order them through the distributor Woodslane).
To read more about the book please see this page.
‘Curtain-raiser’ analysis in The Energy
As the Government seeks to mould transportation policy in the light of the transition and a war in Iran, it must build and maintain trust that will serve individual, community and national interests
This evening we’ll see a second term government, with unprecedented parliamentary majorities, deliver a budget response to the “hard new world” facing Australia abroad and the hard life facing many Australians at home.
In this context, the Government faces many hard decisions. Even considering just the narrow scope of decarbonising transport, the Government has at least five consequential and controversial issues to contend with: subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs), subsidies for EV charging infrastructure, network pricing for behind-the-meter and rapid EV charging, road user charges for EVs, and fuel excise.
Each of these is part of the bigger question: how do all Australians receive an equitable share of the benefits and carry an equitable share of costs of the transition to a clean transport system?
In addressing this question, it is worth reflecting upon the experience of decarbonising Australia’s electricity system. In particular, the importance of building and maintaining people’s trust in the transition as a project that serves individual, community and national interests, with equitably distributed costs and benefits.
This trust has been undermined by the real and/or perceived inequities between regional communities that host coal power stations and transmission lines and inner-city consumers; as well as between the ‘solar haves’ and ‘solar have-nots’, whose difference in experience has only grown with the incentivised roll-out of batteries.
Turning to specific transport decarbonisation policies, the first issue – of incentivising EV uptake through Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) exemptions – has already been announced ahead of the budget. This exemption will remain in place for until the end of March 2027, before being gradually phased out. This policy had been criticised as heavily biased to higher earners, and while the government noted that uptake has been highest outside of the inner cities, directing more than $1.4 billion to the top two tax brackets doesn’t pass the pub test for equity.
The Government has plenty of alternatives it could explore to counterbalance the FBT policy. Subsidising the electrification of taxis and buses would, for example, serve other parts of society and have high economic, environmental and fuel security benefits due to these vehicles’ high utilisation rates.
The second policy issue relates to expanding kerbside charging infrastructure for EVs. This infrastructure is critical for making EVs attractive, especially to those who don’t have access to off-street parking and those who rent or live in apartments. The Government has previously committed $40 million to support the growth of kerbside charging networks. This amount, humble compared to the billions spent on FBT exemptions, could be bolstered to expand the communities to whom kerbside charging would make EVs an option.
However, the issue of kerbside charging poses policy and regulatory challenges regarding who — between EV drivers, taxpayers and electricity consumers — should pay for this infrastructure. The Government’s subsidy program proposes taxpayers cover up to 30 per cent of costs, with electricity consumers covering the remainder through network charges. It furthermore proposes that commercial charging providers be allowed to cherrypick favourable sites, which risks pushing the costs to maintain the less favourable but still critically important sites onto taxpayers and electricity consumers, without the cross-subsidisation of more profitable sites.
The third policy issue pertains to how EV drivers should contribute to the upkeep of the electricity networks they use to charge. When charging at home or at work (or elsewhere ‘behind-the-meter’), EV drivers can avoid paying network fees by charging directly from rooftop solar. With EV charging adding a decent fraction of households’ energy consumption, this significantly increases the advantage of being a ‘solar have’, rather than a ‘solar have not’.
In response, the AEMC recently proposed to increase the fixed network charges paid by every customer. While it is commendable for the AEMC to advocate for equity (which its modelling suggests this reform would deliver), the volume of opposition highlights that distributional issues are not well suited to technocratic solutions, but require political leadership to justify the trade-offs across interest groups.
Another example of where this applies is the debate around how EV drivers should pay for the network when using fast-charging stations. Are demand tariffs the appropriate way of recovering the costs of these chargers’ bursts of high power consumption?
A fourth issue for policymakers is how to implement road-user charges. These charges are a way for EV drivers to contribute to state and federal budgets (notionally for road maintenance) in the absence of paying fuel excise. Once again, the delicacy is around the timing and magnitude of charges, so as to balance incentives for EV uptake with equitable cost distribution.
Lastly, there is the issue of fuel excise itself. On the one hand, the Government is seeking to soften the blow to everyday Australians of the fuel price surges driven by the attacks on Iran; even if circumstances may ultimately require a reduction of fuel consumption. On the other hand, the Government is resisting pressure to place a cap on the Fuel Tax Credit scheme, which enables businesses to claim back the fuel tax they pay on diesel.
These credits were the 16th largest single expense in the 2025/26 budget, with an estimated cost of $10.8 billion. The proposal to cap diesel tax refunds at $50 million per company, per year – backed by Fortescue and IEEFA – would apply to around 18 of Australia’s biggest companies in mining – not farmers, fishers, small miners or truck drivers – and would boost the government budget by billions of dollars each year (and incentivise electrification).
For these five policy issues, and the question of Australians’ inclusive and equitable participation in the decarbonisation transition, this budget comes at a critical moment. The costs of inaction, of staying exposed to the volatility and precarity of fossil fuel supplies is indisputable and omnipresent, meanwhile the availability and attractiveness of clean alternatives is widely recognised and supported. But there is a grave risk of losing the social license for the transition due to perceptions from voters that it isn’t benefiting all Australians, that its costs and benefits are being distributed inequitably, and/or that there is a lack of trust in the transparency with which trade-offs are being made.
None of the five policy issues have clear-cut answers. They each call upon the Government to make appropriate judgements – on each issue and the suite as a whole. But it is clear that the Government must communicate each decision with transparent reasoning and expected consequences. This is foundational to trust, and, as Chilli Heeler explained to her daughters Bluey and Bingo, “if there’s no trust, none of this [the world] is possible… no roads, no power lines.”
I recently made two submissions to the AEMC on live rule change proposals, these are copied below.
My perspective on the first resultant draft rule change was included in The Driven.
“Imperfect as it is, the government’s program will make positive contributions by getting chargers installed in the near term, and collecting evidence to inform the next rounds of rule change processes and government policies.
I expect the learnings will reinforce how attention and resources need to focus more on urban planning processes and less on electricity sector processes,”
I came to kerbside EV charging from the perspective of the electricity system.
I now believe it’s a mistake to be treating kerbside chargers akin to streetlights: infrastructure to be deployed uniformly along every street (lest to have ‘blackspots’), with electricity system impacts front and center (baseload demand overnight).
Instead, kerbside chargers are much more like traffic lights: some streets need lots close together, some need them spread out, others none at all, and their impacts on the electricity system are secondary to how humans and cars flow through streetscapes.
This foregrounds the role of local councils as local planners and representatives of the (highly heterogeneous) local contexts of their communities.
Full interview in The Driven and below
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Article in The Conversation
Electric vehicles (EVs) are no longer a niche technology. Australians are buying them in growing numbers as petrol prices bite and the federal government continues its tax exemption until 2029.
The challenge now is to build the supporting charging infrastructure.
Fast and ultrafast chargers, which recharge a typical EV in 10–15 minutes, have proven to be commercially attractive, with the number of these chargers growing by 22% in 2025. This is because drivers will pay a premium to recharge quickly while travelling.
But they aren’t appropriate for everyday use. They’re too expensive, and place stress on EV batteries and the grid. They also risk aggravating metro-regional divisions, with regional communities hosting infrastructure that serves the needs of city travellers and not locals.
So, what’s the answer? Our new research crunched the data from 27,000 kerbside charging sessions and made it public in an effort to find out.
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Article in The Conversation https://theconversation.com/growing-ev-popularity-is-leading-to-queues-at-fast-chargers-could-a-kerbside-charger-network-help-279563
The war on Iran has made crystal clear how shaky our reliance on fossil fuels is. It’s no surprise electric vehicles and transport have become more appealing.
In Australia, sales of electric vehicles surged 40–50% in March.
That sudden surge came after ten months of relatively slow growth, during which battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles made up roughly 14% of new car sales. Industry groups saw the sluggishness as a sign of the difficulties in moving beyond early adopters to the much larger mainstream market.
This market includes people who live in apartments or inner city areas with no off street parking. In Sydney’s eastern suburbs, for example, 60% of residents live in apartments or townhouses, and 50% rent.
If the millions of Australians in this position are to go electric, they have to be confident in their ability to charge cheaply and conveniently. Relying on public fast chargers won’t be enough, as queues at chargers over Easter show.
These drivers will need a high quality public kerbside charging network, where drivers can park on a street, plug in a slower but much cheaper charger and head to the shops. In our new research, we lay out what a good kerbside network should look like.
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It was an honour to attend the PM’s Prizes for Science, particularly with the inaugural PM Prize for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge Systems.
A few lines from Anthony Albanese really stood out to me:
“the work that you do lasts through generations.”
“Over the span of thousands of generations, First Nations’ Australians have cultivated a unique connection to this land.
To its ecosystems, its skies and its waterways.
An intimate wisdom, passed on through deep time.
Through this connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have created their own detailed knowledge of meteorology, astronomy, horticulture, biology.
For the longest time, much of this knowledge went unseen and unconsidered by mainstream science.
Yet, just as embracing the world’s oldest continuous culture has enriched our understanding of our history.
Understanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander science allows us to see things we might otherwise have missed.
Shedding new light on problems, making fresh connections across disciplines and deepening our collective knowledge of our home continent, and the world around us.
This is surely what lies at the heart of science.”
It was refreshing to present at some conferences IRL recently (SoERC and Cigre). My slides – on the ANU research on accommodating electrification demand growth into the side capacity of the distribution network – are now on the Australian Policy Online (this is a great initiative and treasure trove – check it out!). https://apo.org.au/node/331066
This podcast discussion is another good summary of the take home messages:
as is their write up:
Good CER policy depends on good (transparent, open source) analysis, which depends on good (open source) data. Here is data set of 100 Canberra properties, including their power demand, solar generation and battery operation. This has been foundational to much of the analysis I conducted at ANU, and I hope make others will find many other uses for it.
I’ve chosen to finish up at The Australian National University this week. Some, incomplete, reflections on the six years there:
“it is vital that before we build more network, we use more network” – AER Chair, Clare Savage
Electrification and population growth will both drive significant increases in electricity demand over the coming decades. This study investigates how the effect of this growth on zone substations could be mitigated by scheduling water heating and electric vehicle charging to occur during solar hours and overnight.
Taking the ACT as a case study, we find that the complete electrification of water heating and private vehicles, together with population growth would drive a large increase in total demand. By 2045 – when the ACT Government plans to get off gas – the increase is on the order of 75% for high growth regions such as Gungahlin. 30% is due to population growth and 45% from vehicle electrification. The electrification of water heating is compensated for by the efficiency of heat pump hot water systems, which we assume make up 75% of heaters in 2045.
We find that the super simple approach of scheduling water heating and vehicle charging loads to occur at fixed hours each day throughout a year effectively avoids these appliances contributing to peak demand on zone substations. Modeled zone substation demand continues to peak on winter evenings due to other loads (significantly space heating in the cold Canberra climate), which we model to be inflexible.
It concludes that simple strategic policies that shift loads into low demand periods would enable significant growth in total demand to be accommodated within existing zone substation capacity limits. For example, in the suburb of Gungahlin, such measures could limit peak demand increases to just 25%, while all private vehicles and domestic hot water are electrified, and the population grows by 30%.
For the avoidance of doubt, the study does not purport to predict how demand growth and demand scheduling will develop, but to provide quantified, plausible scenarios of how they could develop to motivate and guide policy and public initiatives.
Noting that zone substations are only one link in the electricity grid, three goals stand out:
Conference presentation and full report below
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