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[Episode #247] – Energy Innovations in Australia

Apr 9 2025

This episode is part of a miniseries about Australia's energy transition.

In late 2024, Chris traveled to Australia and recorded interviews with experts closely involved in its energy transition. The first of those interviews was featured in Episode #234, and the second in Episode #235. In Episode #246, we explored how the Australian government is working with the grid power sector to plan its transition to renewables while maintaining system reliability.

In this episode, we explore innovative approaches Australia is using to manage the evolution of its energy system.

To tell this part of the story, we weave together the perspectives of several guests:

Darren Miller, CEO of ARENA, explains their investment focus on early-stage technologies.
Gabrielle Kuiper, energy and climate change professional, shares insights on DER integration across Australia.
Stephanie Unwin, CEO of Horizon Power, discusses the unique challenges of managing a remote utility in Western Australia.
Professor John Boland describes how he and his wife used low-tech solutions to transform an uncomfortable old house into a comfortable urban oasis.

In the next miniseries episodes, we'll explore more innovations in solar power and take a close look at how one Australian state is solving the challenges of knitting together customer-owned systems into a reliable power grid.

Guest #1:

Darren Miller has been the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) since 2018. With 30 years’ experience across renewable energy, electricity retail, technology, finance, media and entertainment, Darren has led ARENA into new strategic areas. With a focus on optimising Australia’s electricity transition, commercialising renewable hydrogen, supporting the transition to low emissions metals and decarbonising transport, Darren’s leadership has given clear and defined purpose to ARENA in meeting Australia’s net zero targets and setting Australia up as a potential renewable energy superpower.

Prior to ARENA, Darren was co-founder and CEO of Mojo Power, an innovative electricity retailer. He was also previously the Director of Asset Finance at Sungevity Australia, and co-founder and CEO of Sumwise, a technology and services company. His breadth of experience includes managing investments for Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and Consolidated Press Holdings, as well as in corporate finance and advisory at Ernst & Young. He is a Chartered Accountant with a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of New South Wales.

On the Web: https://arena.gov.au/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenhmiller/

Guest #2:

Dr Gabrielle Kuiper is an energy, sustainability and climate change professional with over 20 years’ experience in the corporate world, government and non-government organisations and academia. Dr Kuiper has held senior executive or senior advisory energy-related positions at the Energy Security Board, in the Office of the Prime Minister, at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and in the NSW Government. Dr Kuiper currently works internationally and in Australia on policy and regulation to support Distributed Energy Resources (DER), including as a guest contributor with IEEFA, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an international independent think tank focused on speeding up the energy transition.

On Twitter: @GabrielleKuiper

On the Web: Gabrielle’s reports for IEEFA

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-gabrielle-kuiper-2016/

Guest #3:

John Boland is Professor of Environmental Mathematics and Deputy Director of the Industrial AI Research Centre at the University of South Australia.

His research covers a wide range of areas in what can be termed environmental mathematics, from water resource management to renewable energy utilisation to energy efficient house design to environmental accounting. He is a Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand, and of the Australian Institute of Energy. He has had 35 successful PhD student completions and is an Australian Expert member of the International Energy Agency Task 16 on solar resource assessment and forecasting for photovoltaic systems. He has performed consultancy work on topics including integration of renewables into the grid and the reliability standard for electricity for the AEMO and AEMC.

Chris Bryant is a qualified Permaculture Designer, and her background as a health professional combines well with permaculture principles to enhance her own and others’ health and comfort.

John and Chris have been featured on Gardening Australia in a segment entitled Mediterranean Mindset. They also manage a private conservation park at Monarto, fully heritage listed, where they have a Biodiversity Credit Scheme grant to enhance the biodiversity over ten years.

On the Web: https://people.unisa.edu.au/john.boland

Guest #4:

Stephanie Unwin is the CEO of Western Australia’s regional power provider, Horizon Power. Ms. Unwin a Senate member of Murdoch University, Non Executive Director of Energy Vault, Director of the Industry body: Energy Networks Australia, and a member of the investment committee at Kilara Capital. Her past experience included being non-executive director of Zenith Energy, Alacer Gold Corp and Integra Mining Limited, as well as non-executive director and then CEO at Phylogica. Ms Unwin has held several executive roles with Verve Energy, then transitioning to Synergy, and CBH Group. She was also a board member of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency for over 5 years. Ms Unwin commenced her career with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, then with Freehills. She then joined Craig Readhead & Co and was made a partner of the boutique practice Pullinger Readhead Stewart. Ms Unwin subsequently joined Maxim Litigation Consultants as principal. Ms Unwin holds Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and Economics (BEcon) from Murdoch University. She is also a Harvard Business School (AMP) graduate.

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-unwin-63934b2b

On the Web: https://www.horizonpower.com.au/

Geek rating: 6

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[Episode #246] – Meeting Australia’s 2030 Target

Mar 26 2025

Mini Episode

This episode is part of a miniseries about Australia’s energy transition.

In late 2024, Chris traveled to Australia and recorded interviews with a wide range of experts who are closely involved in its energy transition. The first of those interviews was featured in Episode #234, and the second in Episode #235.

In this episode, we'll see how the Australian government is working with the grid power sector to plan and execute its transition to renewables—despite a political opposition committed to fossil fuels and nuclear. We'll also explore what's being done to ensure adequate capacity and maintain system reliability during this transformation.

To tell this story, we weave together the perspectives of several guests:

Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy for the Australian Labor Party, explains Australia's decarbonization targets and the government's framework to achieve them.
Matt Kean, Chair of Australia's Climate Change Authority, shares his team’s findings about the best pathways to meet those targets.
Alex Wonhas of AMPYR shares insights from helping grid operator AEMO develop Integrated System Plans that describe how to evolve the system toward those targets while maintaining reliability.
Tristan Edis of Green Energy Markets discusses the technical considerations of orchestrating new grid power resources.

In the subsequent episodes in this miniseries, we’ll be exploring how Australia is using innovation to meet the challenges of the transition. We’ll also take a closer look at how they use DER integration to support the system while helping customers gain more control over their energy bills and even save money.

Guest #1:

Dr. Alex Wonhas is a veteran senior executive and thought leader who has shaped the national and state-based strategic agendas in Australia’s energy sector for more than three decades.

Through roles including Executive General Manager at AEMO, Managing Director at Aurecon, and Executive Director at CSIRO, he has worked extensively with governments and industry in the Energy and Resources sector on issues ranging from strategic investment decisions in a complex and rapidly changing market environment, development and procurement of new large-scale infrastructure, impact of new technologies, to operational and organisational improvement. He is currently the CEO of AMPYR Australia.

Alex has served on a range of energy and resources related advisory committees and boards, including the Energy Corporation of New South Wales, CSIRO Chile, Evergen, CO2CRC, ANLEC, and the Australian Solar Institute. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge.

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwonhas/

Guest #2:

Chris Bowen is Minister for Climate Change and Energy for the Australian Labor Party, representing Prospect, New South Wales in the House of Representatives. He has held a wide range of portfolios including serving as Treasurer, Minister for Human Services, Minister for Immigration, Minister for Financial Services, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Competition Policy, Minister for Small Business and Minister for Tertiary Education. Chris has been responsible for a range of significant policy reform programs in these portfolios.

He served as Interim Leader of the Labor Party and Acting Leader of the Opposition following the 2013 Federal election and served as Shadow Treasurer.

On Twitter: @bowenchris

On the Australian Government website: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=DZS

On the Web: https://www.chrisbowen.net/

Guest #3:

The Hon. Matt Kean is the Chair of Australia’s Climate Change Authority. He is also the Director of Regulatory Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at Wollemi Capital.

Matt was most recently the New South Wales (NSW) Government Shadow Minister for Health. He was Deputy Leader of the NSW Liberal party from August 2022 until March 2023. Throughout his 13-year political career, Matt also held ministries of Innovation and Better Regulation, Treasury, Energy and Environment. He was the local New South Wales Government member for Hornsby from 2011 until 2024.

As Treasurer and Energy Minister of NSW, Matt championed climate action that is in the best interests of households and businesses. In 2020, he delivered the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap: A 20-year plan for NSW’s energy infrastructure. The roadmap spurs private investment in renewable energy while reducing emissions and power bills for the people of NSW.

On Twitter: @Matt_KeanMP

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kean-mp/

On the Web: https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/

Guest #4:

Tristan Edis has worked on commercial and policy initiatives for the energy transition for 24 years.

Currently he is the Director of Analysis and Advisory at Green Energy Markets. He undertakes research to support clients making investment, trading and policy decisions related to energy and carbon abatement markets.

Tristan has written extensively on how to improve the energy system and markets to deliver reliable and affordable energy while also addressing climate change.

Previously, he has worked in the Clean Energy Council for the Australian Government, Ernst & Young, and the Grattan Institute think tank. He was also the editor of a clean energy news website called Climate Spectator.

On Twitter: @TristanEdis

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristan-edis-7b107998/

On the Web: https://www.greenmarkets.com.au/

Tristan’s research papers in IEEFA

Tristan’s articles in AFR

Tristan’s articles in The Guardian

Tristan’s articles in Watt Clarity

Tristan’s articles in Renew Economy

Tristan’s articles in Inside Story

Tristan’s articles in The Australian

Geek rating: 5

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[Episode #209] – End of the Nuclear Age

Oct 18 2023

Mini Episode

If we genuinely need nuclear power—be it older conventional designs or new, unproven small modular designs—to make the energy transition a success, then that case has not been demonstrated. Instead, nuclear advocates have primarily used political argument to support continued investment in it. Because if we just went by the industry’s actual track record, and properly internalized its risks and high costs, we’d never build another nuclear power plant again.

Nuclear power never had a proper justification as an electricity generation technology. It is an industry built on a foundation of lies, extravagance, conceit, and failure. It always has been, and continues to be, a fig leaf for the nuclear weapons industry.

The fact is that we do not need nuclear power to make the energy transition a success. Even if we did continue to invest in it and force the public to shoulder its actual risks and excessive costs, doing so could actually hinder the energy transition, not advance it.

Our guest in this episode, Stephanie Cooke, has literally written the book on the untold history of nuclear power. As the former editor of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly and the author of In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age, she brings over four decades of experience as a professional nuclear industry journalist. She explains why, contra the recent pro-nuclear sentiment captivating climate hawks, the nuclear power industry is not at the dawning of a new age, but rather at the end of its old age.

Geek rating: 5

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[Episode #205] – Rebuilding the Grid from the Bottom-up

Aug 23 2023

Mini Episode

A tsunami of distributed energy resources (DERs) is starting to arrive on the grid. Customers are adopting millions of EVs, rooftop solar systems, battery backup units, and other devices that can dynamically respond to grid conditions. But most utilities are not engaging with this wave proactively. Instead, they’re being reactive, slow, and even resistant to allowing these devices to connect to the grid or participate in transactions.

As we rebuild and transform the grid in the course of the energy transition, we really need to think about how to accommodate DERs. There are manifold reasons to build a decentralized grid from the bottom-up, instead of keeping the conventional, top-down, hub-and-spoke architecture based on the large centralized power plants that we have relied upon in the past. So how do we do it?

Lorenzo Kristov has been agitating for this new architecture for years, frequently issuing white papers and expert testimony to get regulators and others thinking about what the future grid should look like. And his ideas are being taken seriously, because he was a lead designer of the locational marginal pricing (LMP) market on which California’s wholesale power system operates. He has deep expertise in wholesale market design, DER participation in wholesale markets, coordination of transmission-distribution system operations, distribution system operator (DSO) models, distribution-level markets, microgrids, energy resilience strategies, and whole-system grid architecture, among other things. And he has been walking us through his vision for the decentralized grid in previous episodes of our show: #10, #94, and #150.

In today’s episode, Lorenzo rejoins us to build on our previous conversations and share his latest thinking about how to make the new energy transition grid architecture happen. We discuss market design, architecture, procurement, regulatory issues, and related topics, making this episode deserving of a Geek Rating of 10.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #204] – Regulatory Reform

Aug 9 2023

Mini Episode

Whose job is it to lead the energy transition?

In previous episodes, we’ve talked about how markets can guide the transition, especially after targeted reforms. We’ve considered the role of regulators, and the problems of regulatory capture and corruption. We’ve asked how local community leaders and elected officials can lead the energy transition from the bottom up, and conversely, how local activists can hinder and undermine the energy transition. We’ve also looked at the role of governments, particularly where no one else seems able to meet a particular challenge, or where that challenge isn’t really anyone’s responsibility.

In this episode, we try to knit together these disparate threads with veteran regulator Audrey Zibelman, who has held senior roles at both utilities and regulatory bodies for more than 30 years. Audrey shares some deep thoughts about why regulators and governments will have to play much more creative, courageous, and ambitious roles in the future to contend with the challenges of the energy transition.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #197] – Virtual Power Plants (VPPs)

May 3 2023

Full Episode

The time may have arrived for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to fully realize their potential. In a VPP, groups of distributed energy resources (DERs) like EVs, batteries, and heat pumps can be managed to consume power when it is inexpensive, avoid consuming power when it is expensive, and even provide power back to the grid when supplies are limited.

While VPPs have been around for many years, operating commercially in places like Australia, the US power grid has not seen wide-scale integration. This is now changing because VPPs can help the grid do more with less - supporting new loads without requiring expensive new investments in grid expansion.

In this episode, Jigar Shah, Director of the Loan Programs Office at the US Department of Energy, joins us to share his vision of a much-expanded role for VPPs on the power grid and why he thinks the sector is ready to scale up. You’ll hear how a handful of VPPs and programs to support them have been launched in the US. You’ll also hear how the US Department of Energy is exploring ways to accelerate the development and integration of VPPs, including making financing available through Jigar’s office to support the adoption of VPP-enabled DERs under the Title 17 Clean Energy Financing program.

And because Jigar is with the Department of Energy, sharing information that should be accessible to everyone, we decided to make this one of our occasional lagniappe shows and put it in front of the paywall so that premium and free listeners alike can enjoy it. Hey free listeners, now you can see what you’ve been missing!

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #189] – Financing the Transition

Jan 4 2023

Mini Episode

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), almost all of the growth in global clean energy spending is happening in advanced economies and China, while the two-thirds of the global population that live in emerging market and developing economies are receiving less than one-fifth of the total. The reason? The high cost of capital.

But why is the cost of capital so much higher in emerging economies than in advanced economies? Why is it still so much harder and more expensive to finance clean energy projects than it is to finance fossil fuel projects in those countries? And what can be done about it?

In this episode, we speak with a solar project developer working in Costa Rica to try to answer these questions. Building on our previous discussion from Episode #21, we try to explain why so little progress has been made, especially by the multilateral development banks (like the World Bank), in reducing the cost of financing for renewable energy projects in emerging economies. We review the different roles that various financial institutions play in financing the energy transition, and we ask what needs to change to unlock the flow of capital into energy transition solutions (especially distributed solar). We also put the risk and reward of investing in those projects in a fresh context, and call upon banks of all kinds to start acting in more creative and ambitious ways to take bolder action and get capital deployed where it is most needed, and where it can do the most good.

Geek rating: 6

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[Episode #154] – Japan’s Nuclear Dilemma

Sep 1 2021

Mini Episode

Japan was once the third-largest operator of nuclear power facilities in the world, but that came to a sudden end with the largest earthquake to ever hit the country on March 11th, 2011, which caused a massive tsunami that led to the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and then to the closure of all 54 of the country’s nuclear plants. In the decade hence, Japan has struggled to plot a new course to get its energy, see-sawing between attempts to restart the plants and relying more on coal and natural gas, while at the same time trying to improve efficiency, conserve energy, and find ways to reduce its emissions to help meet its decarbonization targets under the Paris climate agreement.

Now, the country’s leadership is taking bold steps toward building more renewables and seeking to cut back on its use of fossil fuels, while just a handful of its nuclear plants have been restarted and the future of the rest is very much in contention. It’s a confusing political landscape, and one of the most challenging cases in the world for energy transition, but it also could prove to be one of the most cutting-edge leaders, especially if it can exploit its offshore potential for renewables.

In this episode, Bloomberg reporter Stephen Stapczynski, who has reported on Japan’s energy sector for years, paints for us a coherent picture of Japan’s nuclear past, where it stands now, and how it will obtain its energy in the future.

Geek rating: 2

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[Episode #150] – Resilient and Reliable Power

Jun 23 2021

Mini Episode

As areas like California and Texas struggle amid wildfires, extreme freezes, high winds and other challenges, and take measures to keep the lights on, it’s worth pausing to consider what “resilient” and “reliable” grid power means from the perspective of grid planning. What, specifically, should the operators of the bulk power system do to make their grids more reliable? Do wholesale power markets need to be reformed, to internalize the costs of power shutoffs and send price signals that project developers can respond to? How can new technologies, like demand response systems and microgrids, play new roles in making grids more resilient? And at an even more fundamental level… who is the grid for, anyway? Does the grid exist to serve people, or do people exist to serve the grid?

Energy Transition Show regular Lorenzo Kristov, a grid architect of over 20 years’ experience, has been thinking deeply about these questions and shares his thoughts with us in this episode. Inverting the usual logic of grid planning, he suggests that more active participation by customers and distributed energy resources can help improve both grid resilience and reliability, while democratizing grid power and grid governance. This thoughtful, heady interview will leave even veteran grid experts with more than a few new ideas to consider!

Geek rating: 9

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[Episode #114] – Cyber and Climate Risks

Feb 5 2020

Mini Episode

As energy transition progresses and more internet-connected distributed energy resources (DERs) join the grid, they increase the grid’s flexibility and dynamism, but they also expose those systems to the risk of being hacked. What kinds of protections do we need to have as grid modernization proceeds and more and more devices in the so-called “internet of things” (IoT) become part of the grid ecosystem? Should we be encouraging the adoption of smart, interconnected devices at all? Or would we be better off using devices that were not connected to communication systems in any way, to better ensure their security? And what are the relationships between cybersecurity on the grid, and the effects of climate change?

Our guest in this episode is a cybersecurity expert with the Idaho National Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy, who provides strategic guidance on topics at the intersection of critical infrastructure security and resilience to senior U.S. and international government and industry leaders. He’s a longtime expert in this domain with a deep and wide set of relevant expertise, and you’re sure to learn a lot in this conversation about things that you probably didn’t even know existed, but that are intimately connected with grid security, climate change, and energy transition. Open your mind wide for this one – it’s a doozy!

Geek rating: 9

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