Post Category → Electricity

Video insight into the EnergiZine experiences

This has been one of the most engaging – and out there – projects I’ve ever had been involved in. It was an absolute privelidge to work with Brad Riley and collaborators in the First Nations Clean Energy Network on the content, Mitchell Whitelaw and Dave Fanner from the Engaged ANU on the creative engagement, and Tristan Schultz from Relative Creative who designed the richly layered absurdist mnemonic experience.

My speech from the events:

Let me add my respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri custodians of the beautiful and unceded land on which we’re gathered this evening and to all First Nations people who have cared for country since time immemorial.

The theme of tonight is wellness.

Everything you’ll be exposed to and will have to deliberate on and choose between effects your wellness and the wellness of your communities and the earth.

We don’t ever think or talk about our role at the ANU in terms of wellness, but really everything we do is in service of this goal: the wellness of individuals, communities, and the planet.

Now not everything you’ll find on these tables will assist with wellness. After all, a key part of wellness is avoiding that which makes you unwell: be that stress, junk food, pollution, etc.

And you can’t always trust what you read in wellness magazines and labels, you’ve got to critically investigate to uncover the complex interrelations and impacts of things.

This too is a vital part of our job at the ANU – to uncover and analyse that which makes people and places unwell. So keep an eye out for this tonight.

And with that, I wish you luck in nurturing, navigating, and crafting your wellness energy transition. I hope it’s as stimulating and engaging to complete as it’s been to create.

Engaged ANU event at Questacon

Immerse yourself in an absurd wellness ritual, and design your renewable energy future in the style of a wellness EnergiZine.

EnergiZine: Nurturing Energy Transitions

In this immersive journey, we embrace the strange obsession of modern culture with wellness and extend its fascination to our energy choices. Like a vibrant metabolic soup, energy systems and sub-systems interplay, offering trade-offs and options for just transitions. Through cutting, pasting, hacking, crafting, mapping, and layering, you will design your renewable energy futures in the style of a wellness EnergiZine, tailored for your own home, workplace, and community memory places. Nourishing the soul, you’ll explore renewable energy sources that nurture our planet and promote our wellbeing.

Drawing on the intelligence of Indigenous knowledge systems, you’ll develop mnemonic techniques to store your energy knowledge for later use. Guest speakers, including First Nations experts and ANU researchers, share perspectives that enrich your EnergiZine.

Join us in this remarkable experience where wellness and energy transitions intertwine. Let the workshop’s immersive atmosphere fuel your creativity and inspire conscious choices. Don’t be left in the dark. As the sun dips below the horizon, let your EnergiZine shine, illuminating a path to a sustainable energy future for ourselves and the planet we call home.

Response to Saul Griffith’s “The Wires That Bind”

This correspondence was originally published in the June 2023 edition of the Quarterly Essay, in response to the March 2023 edition by Saul Griffith.

While the pivotal role of electrification in decarbonisation has been understood for decades, it has rarely been described as vividly or enthusiastically as by Saul Griffith in The Wires That Bind. Griffith recognises that electrification is a story, at its heart, not about decarbonisation but about cleaning the air in our kitchens and streets, improving the liveability of our homes and communities, and “keeping wealth in our households and communities” – and nation. In short, electrification is a story about a better future.

While attuned to this human story of electrification, Griffith is, at heart, an engineer so it’s no surprise that The Wires That Bind is packed full of figures. Emissions are carved up, the grid is mapped and fossil machines are counted. This achieves Griffith’s goal of “clarity about the job in front of us” and complements his persuasive case for electrifying everything. The question that remains is: how can the transition best be accelerated and steered towards just and enduring outcomes?

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Community batteries are popular – but we have to make sure they actually help share power

New article in The Conversation today. Excerpt below.

The idea is for these batteries to reduce carbon emissions and energy bills while benefiting all energy users nearby, rather than only those with access to rooftop solar. These are great ambitions – small wonder they’ve proven a hit.

But the success of these batteries is far from certain.

Over the last four years, our research has found two areas we have to fix to maximise the chances these batteries actually do what we want them to do.

First, we need greater clarity on how we decide whether community batteries are a good investment.

Second, we need better measurement and evaluation of what these batteries actually contribute to the grid and to energy users.

In a new discussion paper, this article’s lead author argues the primary purpose of community batteries ought to be addressing constraint in the local electricity grid. This reiterates a consistent finding from our research.

While this sounds reasonable, community batteries aren’t the only option to fix local grid issues. That means we should only turn to them where they are clearly better than the alternatives, such as upgrading transformers.

What about storing solar and shoring up the grid? These tasks may be done more efficiently and with less environmental impact with grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro or electric vehicle batteries.

And what about sharing the benefits of solar with people who can’t afford an array or who have nowhere to put one? While this vision is in line with public sentiment, the complexity of the privatised energy system makes it very difficult to redistribute financial benefits.

Community batteries are also no panacea for the desire of people to see and be included in national planning for the decarbonisation transition. An inclusive planning process can address uncertainties in how the transition will affect us and our communities and ensure it upholds public values.

Time will tell if the newly announced Net Zero Authority will deliver this.

Yahoo news: Call for energy rules, not cheap loans, for landlords

Home owners may welcome cheap loans for double-glazing or battery-ready solar but making negative gearing conditional on upgrades has been suggested as more effective for landlords.

Research shows up front costs are not the largest barrier to rental property investments in solar, and it may be the same for energy upgrades, energy expert Bjorn Sturmberg has warned.

Property investors do not believe spending money on new energy sources and appliances will get them higher rents – that’s the biggest barrier, Dr Sturmberg said on Wednesday.

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Solar for renters: Investigating investor perspectives of barriers and policies

New research from a collaboration with ANU policy and economics experts has just been published in Energy Policy – available free of charge here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523000022

The policy implications of our findings are summarised below.

Policy interventions that seek to redress the near exclusion of rental properties from solar PV face a delicate balance in both perceptions and impacts: creating benefits for tenants, who may be worried about having to pay higher rents, without overly benefiting property investors, who are relatively wealthy.

The core policy implication of our study is that policies that focus primarily on addressing high upfront costs (as have historically been used) are likely to be limited in their reach. The BWS survey indicated that respondent property investors are on average concerned that they would be unable to benefit from installing solar PV by charging higher rents.

Correcting information asymmetries by focusing policies on mechanisms to make the value of solar more visible to all parties in the market could be a means to release policymakers from the loaded challenge of balancing the incentives offered to property investors and the benefits flowing to tenants.

One way through which to increase visibility of the value of solar PV is through active monitoring and disclosure of the performance of solar PV systems to the rental market (providing the market with assurance that a system is operating well). This is most effective when the value is presented in tangible financial (dollar) terms, rather than more abstract ratings such as energy efficiency stars.

Woodford Folk Festival 2022-23

I had a wonderful time at the Woodford Folk Festival over the summer. I can now confirm that it’s no less fun with a toddler than childless! So much excitement and good vibes all around.

I gave an hour long presentation on “Watt’s in store for the energy system?” in the main festival, with special guest Prof Ian Lowe, as well as spending an hour doing some readings of Amy’s Balancing Act in the children’s festival. Both were very fun and engaging with the switched on crowds.

My slides for the adult presentation are below, together with a few pics – more on instagram

202212-Sturmberg-WoodfordDownload