Economist Ross Garnaut has many descriptions attached to his name  - emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, former economic adviser to Prime Minister Bob Hawke, ambassador to China, author - but there’s one label you may not have heard: “An old dog for a hard road”.

Read more: arena.gov.au/blog/ross-garnauts-renewable-energy-road/

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Early in 2022, Australian technology company Hysata announced they had developed a groundbreaking hydrogen electrolyser.

The news made a splash, offering a pathway for emissions free hydrogen to compete with methods of production that rely on fossil fuels.

Read more: https://arena.gov.au/blog/rewired-game-changing-electrolysers-with-hysatas-paul-barrett

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This week on ARENA’s podcast Rewired, we speak to Dr Marnie Shaw from the Australian National University about a new wave of community energy projects.

Unlike the small household batteries that are installed behind the meter to soak up rooftop solar power, community batteries can be installed across the distribution network to benefit all households.

Read more: arena.gov.au/blog/stockpiling-solar-power-in-suburban-batteries/

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Now the Chief Operating Officer at solar pioneer 5B, Kuepper-Russell joins Rewired to explain how the company's unique approach is making solar faster to deploy and more affordable.

With support from ARENA, 5B is deploying robots and automation at their Sydney manufacturing plant. The project aims to bring down the cost of their prefabricated 'Maverick' solar arrays that will soon underpin the world's largest solar farm.

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Founders Andrew Moore and Siobhan Lyndon joined us this week to share their vision for air travel and explain how soon we might take off in their emissions free ‘air taxi’.

Moore has used his aeronautical engineering background, paired with 15 years experience in the aviation industry, to inform the design of AMSL Aero’s “Vertiia” aircraft.

It takes off vertically like a helicopter, using eight electric powered rotors that rotate to horizontal to allow it to fly using a pair of wings. It will come with the option of hydrogen fuel cell or battery electric propulsion, with hydrogen able to travel 1000 kilometres for the same weight as the battery version which can cover about 250 kilometres.

Read more - https://arena.gov.au/blog/a-bit-like-the-jetsons-green-hydrogen-takes-flight

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NASA was developing solar technology to power spacecraft and satellites, but was far too expensive and inefficient for terrestrial applications.

Half a century on, more than three million Australian homes have panels on their rooftops, combining into a force that is transforming the way we use energy.

This week Professor Green joined us this week to share his remarkable story and look to the future of energy, now that solar has officially changed the game.

Read more - https://arena.gov.au/blog/revolutionising-energy-with-australias-solar-superman 

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Their trucks are now in operation across some of Australia’s biggest fleets, ferrying deliveries for Woolworths, IKEA, Australia Post and DHL, and also helping local councils to reduce emissions.

Founded in Australia and now based in Los Angeles, SEA Electric is expanding into international markets, with a growing presence in the US, Europe and Asia.

As well as helping companies to meet their customers’ sustainability expectations, Gillespie explains that the growth of electric trucks offers fleet operators a way to make “extreme” savings on their fuel bills.

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From humble beginnings in a garage in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, solar startup SunDrive is on a rapid rise.

In September, they announced that they had developed the world’s most efficient silicon cell, claiming the record from China’s Longi Solar.

The record is made more significant by the fact that SunDrive’s cells are manufactured with copper in the place of silver, a precious metal that is in limited supply.

This week co-founder and CEO Vince Allen joined Rewired to discuss their new world record for solar efficiency, and what it could mean for the transition to renewable energy.

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In our conversation he explains that investment decisions made today will be key to transforming our energy system and achieving net zero emissions.

We also explore the bold vision that underpins ARENA's new investment plan. As well as helping to decarbonise emissions-intensive industries, success could see more value captured from Australia’s renewable energy and new opportunities created in jobs-rich manufacturing industries.

Read more: arena.gov.au/blog/darren-millers-vision-for-a-prosperous-renewable-future/

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Professor Egan is living her vision, investing in a small solar system in 2008 that she has since expanded and backed up with battery storage. Renate's electrification journey has seen her switch to an electric vehicle and she aims to replace her gas cooktop and water heater within the next year.

In 2013 Renate co-founded Solar Analytics, which provides monitoring information to help solar households understand their energy generation and usage.

Read more on ARENAWIRE: arena.gov.au/blog/electrifying-our-lives-with-professor-renate-egan

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The Renewable Energy Hub, an offshoot of global carbon brokers Tradition, is taking up the challenge, creating new renewable-specific ways to trade energy.

In the newest episode of Rewired, founder Chris Halliwell joined us to discuss the Hub’s work, explaining that electricity is amongst the most volatile and unpredictable commodities in the world.

Read more on ARENAWIRE: https://arena.gov.au/blog/new-trading-toolkit-for-a-transforming-energy-market/

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The RayGen founder joined Rewired to discuss how an idea he developed in his shed has attracted $42 million in capital and will soon be deployed on the site of AGL’s Liddell Power Station.

His “solar thermal” technology concentrates sunlight to central solar PV receivers to produce electricity, while employing an innovative approach to capture the heat by-product to provide long term energy storage.

Read more - https://arena.gov.au/blog/solar-pioneer-breaks-down-his-game-changing-invention/

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With 15 years in the energy industry and a background as a chemical engineer, AGIG’s Head of Strategy and Innovation Kristin Raman is one of the quiet transformers having a big impact on the way we use energy.

She joined us to discuss AGIG’s plan to transition its natural gas network to hydrogen and explain why she thinks our homes should be repowered with renewable gasses.

Read more - https://arena.gov.au/blog/role-for-renewable-gas-in-our-homes

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This season, we will introduce you to some of the people transforming Australia’s energy landscape that you might not have heard from before.

From startup founders disrupting traditional business models, to the people investing new technologies that could power our lives in the future, Rewired will give you unprecedented access to the front line in the energy transition.

Not just generation

We will hear how ARENA funding is helping to trial new ways of producing metals like steel and aluminium using renewable energy.

Experts will share progress commercialising technologies like renewable hydrogen and electric vehicles, which are finally achieving long-held potential.

And we will explore how Australia’s riches of wind and solar could unlock opportunities to undertake more energy-intensive processes onshore, creating jobs and wealth.

This is our most ambitious season to date, with twice as many episodes giving us the chance to showcase more of the ways Australia is unlocking a renewable energy future.

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Around the world, industrial energy users are embracing renewable energy. Global giants IKEA, Lego, Apple and Coca Cola are amongst hundreds of companies blazing a trail, making the RE100 pledge to power their operations entirely with renewables.

Closer to home more Australian manufacturers are seeing the benefits of cheap, dependable power - from food producers, to remote mine operators and even companies that produce chemicals in massive volumes.

In the final episode of this season of ReWired, we speak to one of the local businesses leading the way, trading their LPG powered boiler with a Danish-made biomass system. We hear from a Queensland business refining liquid fuels from waste products, and some now familiar voices help to put the bioenergy opportunity into context.

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ARENA Rewired: Solving the Energy Puzzle is available wherever you listen to podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe now so you get a notification when new episodes are released. While this is the final episode in this season, we hope to release more episodes soon.

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In this episode of ReWired we take a deep dive into one of the oldest energy storage technologies - pumped hydro.

More than a century on from the establishment of the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Department, new hydro projects are being developed as part of work to prepare for a future powered by renewables.

In this episode, we hear from Hydro Tasmania CEO Steve Davy about the vision for the island state to become a national powerhouse. Chief Scientist Alan Finkel and AEMO CEO Audrey Zibelman share their insights into how pumped hydro will fit into the future energy mix, and ARENA CEO Darren Miller outlines some of the work underway to help this technology become commercial.

How could it work?

While the technology that underpins pumped hydro is not new, there are only a few working systems around the country.

The two biggest projects in the pipeline - Snowy 2.0 and Tasmania’s Battery of the Nation - have a collective capacity of about 4500 MW. According to Snowy Hydro, the 2000 MW Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro facility could power three million homes for more than a week when operating at full capacity. 

The large output and long duration makes pumped hydro well suited to complement large-scale renewables, with the capacity to store energy from windy and sunny periods for when generation drops.

One challenge is sending electricity from remote sites suited to large-scale pumped hydro facilities to distant population centres where it is needed. Tasmania’s plan to build the “Battery of the Nation” to bolster the National Electricity Market has a particularly big hurdle to overcome - Bass Strait.

With the existing BassLink interconnector at capacity, work is underway to advance the plan for a second connection to the mainland. The business case for the proposed “Marinus Link” is well-developed and the second interconnector is on track to enter service as soon as 2027.

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One of the biggest criticisms of renewable energy has been the simple fact that the output of wind and solar farms can vary depending on the weather and time of day.

When renewables made up a small part of the generation mix, that variability wasn’t a big problem. But as wind and solar do more of the heavy lifting, it is vital that we find ways to store energy for those times when less energy is being generated.

In this episode of ReWired: Solving the Energy Puzzle, we look at one of the newest - and most headline grabbing - large-scale storage technologies.

Just like the AA cells that historically powered devices like transistor radios, massive battery banks today store energy in electric vehicles and increasingly offer a way to support the electricity grid.

Hear Edify Energy CEO John Cole tell us about the 25 MW / 50 MWh battery they have installed alongside their solar farm at Gannawarra in northern Victoria. 

Australian Energy Market Operator CEO Audrey Zibelman shares her perspective on the role storage technologies like batteries have a role to play 'firming' the variable output of wind and solar farms, and helping to keep the lights on.

We also hear from Climateworks CEO Anna Skarbek, who believes that batteries will be an important part of the future energy portfolio. She shares her belief that flagship projects like the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia provide a glimpse of the future and help to shift the conversation around the energy transition.

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In this episode of ReWired, we explore how renewable hydrogen could be poised for its moment in the sun.

While the potential of hydrogen has been understood for decades, the emergence of electrolyser technology - powered by affordable and plentiful energy from the wind and sun - is a potential game-changer.

The opportunity is massive. Just as Australia's resources have underpinned global industry for generations, hydrogen could allow us to export our riches of wind and solar energy as the world works to decarbonise.

Opportunities beyond our borders

One country that sees a bright future for hydrogen is Germany. In this episode, Managing Director of the German Energy Agency Kristina Haverkamp tells us that Germany won't be able to produce enough hydrogen to meet their future demand.

Describing hydrogen as one of a suite of renewable, synthetic ‘powerfuels’, she believes it will be an important alternative to direct electrification in the pathway to a future powered by renewables.

Where do we start

Producing hydrogen with an electrolyser costs more than fossil fuel alternatives today, but ARENA is working hard to make the emerging technology commercial.

As well as investing $70 million into a new funding round, ARENA is supporting massive ammonia users like explosives manufacturer Dyno Nobel to explore whether it is possible to transition to using a renewable hydrogen feedstock.

Incitec Pivot’s Vice President of Strategic Project Development Darren Jarvis told us these projects offer a pathway towards the vision of a hydrogen export industry.

We also hear from ATCO’s Head of Innovation Sam Lee Mohan, who tells us about their work to blend renewable hydrogen into existing natural gas pipelines. 

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Australia’s EV journey has started slowly. But with more models available than ever before and fast charging networks under construction, for many they are becoming a viable alternative.

In this episode of ReWired, experts share their perspective on why you should consider an EV for your next car. Learn about work underway to make sure the electricity grid can cope with a growing fleet of electricity hungry vehicles, and hear from the people building new charging networks.

We even hear how the landscape is transforming in Germany, where the first car was built nearly 135 years ago.

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We begin inside a net zero emissions home overflowing with renewable energy technology. Hear what inspired the owners to reimagine the modern Australian home to create and consume energy as efficiently as possible. 

We speak to energy leaders about the challenge of integrating the array of behind the meter technologies into a grid designed last century. AEMO CEO Audrey Zibelman and Australia's Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel explain some of the ways these hurdles are being overcome, and share a vision for how the network might work in the future.

And ARENA CEO Darren Miller introduces the game-changing distributed energy projects that ARENA is supporting, like Melbourne startup Allume, which is breaking down barriers to solar for apartments and other multi-metered buildings.

Your support made the first two seasons a huge success. Help us to grow the show by sharing it with your networks, and joining in the conversation on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Over six episodes, energy experts and innovators will explore a wide range of topics - the role of large-scale storage in balancing the grid, the transition to a consumer-driven energy system, and the electric vehicle revolution driving us to a more sustainable transport system. 

We will look at the state of Australia’s hydrogen industry, and hear how energy intensive industries are becoming more efficient and embracing renewables. 

You made the first two seasons of ReWired a massive success, and inspired us to share more of the important stories about Australia’s shift to renewable energy.

Find out more at www.arena.gov.au/blog. 

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We take a trip across the Bass Strait as Hydro Tasmania's new Hybrid Energy Hub kicks in to gear to find out how the shift away from diesel generation to renewables will affect lives.

Dewi Cooke meets some of the locals and hears how this small island has lived with intermittent electricity for years, while Adam Morton gets the lowdown on the Hub from Hydro Tasmania's manager of Hybrid Energy Solutions, Ray Massie.

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But 20 years ago, Thompson was just a keen-eyed engineering student concerned about the environment and "this thing called climate change". A former activist and director of major projects at the Moreland Energy Foundation Limited (MEFL), he's been able to ride the wave of interest in environmental concern over the decades as issues that were once considered fringe have hit the mainstream. Now he's at energy software company GreenSync and is helping drive Australia's first open, digital marketplace for renewable energy, dEx.

In this episode of The Innovators, Thompson takes us on a journey from his days as a community campaigner in the Top End and how he applies what he learned to his current role as head of product strategy at GreenSync. For more, go to arena.gov.au/blog

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So what brought her home after years away to the world of venture capital and renewable energy start-ups?

In this episode we hear about her journey to the helm of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation's Innovation Fund where she has a front row seat to Australia's energy revolution, and where she sees the future of renewables heading.

For more information on the work of the fund and the projects she mentions go to arena.gov.au/blog or cefc.com.au

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In this episode of The Innovators you'll meet two scientists whose own failed lab experiment led them to something, arguably, more exciting.

In early 2017, RMIT University academics Torben Daeneke and Kourosh Kalantar Zadeh released details of a "solar paint", one that uses the power of the sun to generate hydrogen from moisture in the air.

With hydrogen a potential source of renewable energy and countries such as South Korea and Japan shifting to a hydrogen-based future, could their discovery have implications for how we use hydrogen going forward?

For more on the future potential of hydrogen, go to arena.gov.au/blog

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She's also co-founder of energy trading start-up PowerLedger, which stormed through its Initial Coin Offering earlier this year and raised $34 million for its platform allowing electricity consumers to receive and trade energy with power companies, and each other.

Jemma talks of the demise of a century-old dynamic where energy consumers were at the end of a long line of service delivery, one that is being replaced, instead, with a "democratisation of power" where the user is King.

In this fascinating conversation, Green describes the many and varied paths she's taken to get to PowerLedger, from investment firms in London to the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and her vision for a future driven by "citizen utilities".

And yes, blockchain gets a mention, too. For more info, go to arena.gov.au/blog or find us on Facebook.

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It's a place of hydrogen-producing solar paint, of virtual power plants and energy cryptocurrencies.

It's a place of pure innovation and leadership, sparked by individuals with a renewable energy future in their sights and, often, extraordinary stories of their own to tell.

Yes, between the politics, the market and the consumer, there's a lot of noise distorting the energy debate right now.

We want to cut through that with stories of world-leading technology, bold ideas, the value of persistence and would you believe it, the motivating force of failure.

Hosted by Adam Morton, The Innovators is a six-part series and is the second of the Rewired podcasts powered by ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Find out more at www.arena.gov.au/blog

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If you've already heard the series please subscribe to get new episodes in the future, and leave a review on iTunes.

If you'd like to know anymore informationa about renewable energy projects around Australia visit ARENA.gov.au

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The Emu Downs wind farm and soon to be solar farm next door have been a boon for the local area of Badgingarra. Farming families have members already employed under the turbines and local businesses are on site at the solar farm.

The complexities of Australia’s energy mix and what that might look like have been a minor feature in the series. Here in Emu Downs Western Australia, it’s materialised.

For more information visit ARENA - www.arena.gov.au

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In the 1970s, after a nearby town turned down the offer of a new zoo (fearing escaped lions would kill livestock) Dubbo jumped at the chance. Decades on they’ve said yes again to two new large scale solar farms - one in nearby Narromine and the other just out of the city.

The new solar farms will be in good company. Dubbo is one of the top three towns or cities in New South Wales when it comes to rooftop solar adoption. And, like our trip to Griffith, Parkes and Nyngan, it’s easy to see why. Dubbo is sunny all the time.

Special guests on this episode are comedian Dave O’Neil and NSW Renewable Energy Advocate Amy Kean.

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Next episode is the final in our trip. We’re headed to WA where a solar farm there will complement the existing wind farm out the back.

For more information - arena.gov.au/podcasts

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What’s it like to visit a solar farm of this size?

And, how have electricity generation costs come down since?

In this episode we head out to northern NSW and also check in with Darren Gladman at the Clean Energy Council for some statistics on how the cost of generation is plummeting.

We hope you’re enjoying our exploration of new large scale solar projects around Australia.

If this is the first episode you’ve encountered, have a look at the others in the feed.

Please subscribe and leave a review with your thoughts about solar energy in Australia.

Find out more information by going to www.arena.gov.au

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But now Parkes, in central west NSW is about to become famous for something else altogether: solar power.

Popping up on a property next door to the town’s mayor, the Parkes Solar Farm will come online towards the end of 2017. When it does, it will power the town’s annual Elvis festival and a whole lot more.

The solar development, one of 12 being supported by ARENA as part of its recent competitive round, will generate approximately 138,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable electricity into the national power grid each year.

This generation will be equivalent to taking either 38,000 cars off the road or planting 195,000 trees, producing enough electricity to power approximately 21,000 homes.

Find out more information by going to www.arena.gov.au

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Enter the town’s new large scale solar farm, currently under construction, and getting ready to feed into the local grid - creating an additional supply of energy for a host of high quality agri-businesses in the region.

For more information about renewable energy in Australia visit www.arena.gov.au

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The project in Kidston (population: 3 or 4) is the first development to begin construction following the Australian Renewable Energy Agency’s Large Scale Solar Competitive Round. It’s a solar farm that one day could charge one of the world’s biggest batteries, ingeniously fashioned from the mine.

In the first episode of Rewired we drive in, meet the locals and a backpacker from Missouri who see the solar farm as a boon to the region.

Learn more about ARENA’s solar energy projects - www.arena.gov.au

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On behalf of the Australian Government, ARENA has invested around $90 million in 12 large scale solar farms around the country after a competitive funding process.

Many of the projects are underway, already generating economic and social benefits for those regional and remote communities that will soon boast their very own solar farm.

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Traveling around Australia, host Courtney Carthy sits down with the farmers, construction managers and everyone in between who are witnessing, first hand, a quiet solar revolution in Australia.

Join him as he hears how the ARENA-supported solar projects are rewiring the electricity grid and providing jobs and other economic benefits to rural and regional communities across the our sun-drenched country.  

For more information check out www.arena.gov.au

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