Launch of Smart Grid Australia
The debate around smart grids took a very interesting turn in Australia at an industry meeting with the Minister on 6 March.
At this meeting The Hon Stephen Conroy, Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, urged the industry, several times, to put maximum effort into smart grids.
While many of our leaders fully understand their benefits, to date it has not been possible to use the concept of smart grids as an ICT tool to address problems such as climate change, energy saving, carbon emissions, etc. Smart grids are an essential element for the management of distributed generation and customer demand response. However, a vision for the future is required since the rollout of smart grids is a new paradigm for utilities – one that will require new skills and management of significant technical complexity
The Minister strongly urged the industry to strive to lift the profile of smart grids, beyond the telecoms and utilities industries. A more widespread debate would hopefully also encourage the electricity utilities to act with more speed and less reluctance.
The Minister has also instigated inter-departmental discussions on the matter, and he has offered to facilitate meetings between our industry group and other ministerial advisors, and people within government circles he believes we should meet.
GridWise is an alliance that promotes a new way to think about how energy is generated, distributed and used, using advanced communications and up-to-date information technology.
It envisions a transformed electricity system that will improve coordination between supply and demand, and enable a smarter, more efficient, secure and reliable electric power system. Considering the accepted fact that about 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions come from electricity power generation GridWise emphasises in its education, advocacy and lobbying work that the smart grid is an absolute prerequisite for any serious action in effectively addressing global warming.
We are now looking at broadening the UtiliTel initiative to the wider ICT industry, following the precedent set in the USA. Following discussion with the USA Gridwise team, there are clear benefits in combining the know-how of the technology industry and utilities to form a similar body to Gridwise in Australia. Electricity distributors are primarily represented through the ENA as their industry body; however ENA is the domain only of these companies, whereas smart grids will require a cooperative approach from technology companies, utilities and government. It is important that any Australian GridWise initiative includes the ENA and obtains credibility at high levels within electricity distributors.
The aim, as advocated by the Minister, is to act quickly. During March/April we intend to develop the parameters for the launch in Australia of an Alliance similar to Gridwise. The official launch will take place at an industry dinner on 23 April, on the eve of the 2008 Smart Grid Summit in Sydney.
Representatives of the Federal Departments of Climate Change, Energy and Broadband will be present at the Roundtable. I am in the process of inviting one of the Ministers to launch the initiative and I am also looking at a keynote guest for the dinner.
Click the link for more details on the Roundtable and industry dinner
