Australian utilities discuss smart grid

One hundred movers and shakers from the Australian Utilities sector met recently at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort and Spa, Gold Coast in a closed door environment to discuss the major changes that are reshaping the traditional roles of utilities, creating opportunities for new technologies, and how it is redefining the scope and character of the sectors interface with customers and communities.

Amongst the standout discussions of the three days were the keynotes delivered by Terry Effeney – CEO, Energex , Queensland’s largest electricity provider and that of Peter Birk – CTO, EnergyAustralia.

“The utilities sector is experiencing an unprecedented paradigm shift that holds promise of opportunity, but knowledge of significant risk,” said Terry Effeney during his keynote address, adding that “during the next two decades the industry will see a gradual shift away from the traditional centrally focused ‘generation-transmission-distribution’ paradigm to a more customer driven distributed energy resource DER model.”

He also pointed to significant innovation playing a major role in the delivery of energy to customers in efforts to better align their economic requirements and the community's needs for improved environment stewardship.

“The strategies for the future that Energex spoke to were based around utilizing the existing infrastructure but needing to manage the assets, energy flows and work processes with 21st century technology which will provide, not only improved asset management and customer service, but provide a platform on which additional new technologies could be implemented.”

Peter Birk spoke candidly about the extensive smart grid program run by EnergyAustralia being at the forefront of innovation internationally.

“The program looks to the development and implementation of a range of grid and customer side solutions to make organizations more productive, improve their network reliability and to create innovative customer solutions.

“In light of EnergyAustralia’s recent award in receiving the federal government's $100 million Smart Grid, Smart City grant it was fascinating to learn the detail to how EnergyAustralia will leverage its existing program to deliver the Smart Grid, Smart City. Stating that a key success factor for the delivery of Smart Grid, Smart City will be engagement with other industry participants and the dissemination of information with the broader industry, to ensure results from the demonstration are largely appropriate Australia wide.”

These comments from Mr. Birk were well received by the utilities sector.