Winners to feature at National Smart Grids Forum

The Australian Government has committed up to $100 million to develop the Smart Grid, Smart City demonstration project to a consortium of companies led by EnergyAustralia and AGL.

Both electricity distributors will feature at the 2nd National Smart Grids Forum in November. The conference aims at steering the electricity industry towards engineering utilities of the future.

“Smart Grids are critical in the fight against climate change, as they have enormous potential to improve the efficiency of our electricity sector and transform the way we use energy in our homes and businesses”, said Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency & Water, Senator Penny Wong.

As part of the demonstration project, Energy Australia will turn 15,000 NSW households into ‘smart’ homes in Newcastle, Scone, Newington, Sydney CBD and Ku-ring-gai. AGL will drive the development of innovative products, services and pricing structures to help customers better manage their energy consumption.

This transformation aims to ensure that households have greater control over their energy use and can be proactive in reducing their energy consumption. AGL CEO Michael Fraser said “As Australia’s largest integrated renewable energy company AGL is well positioned to deliver energy efficiency solutions and products to our customers utilising smart grid technologies.”

The conference comes at a crucial time in the industry, as the nation continues to draw momentum towards generating 20% of its electricity supply from renewable energy sources by 2020. To meet the 20/20 target it will be necessary for those sites generating renewable energy, such as solar and wind farms, to be connected to the grid. This initiative will start to address the key barriers by investing in expensive transmission networks to bring large-scale renewable power to the electricity network.