Building the National Energy Analysis Centre – progress update

NEAC is making strong progress toward our goal of providing trusted national research infrastructure to catalyse an equitable energy transition and thriving future industries.

With the Scenarios for Future Living project, we are preparing to recruit the first tranche of participants into the Living Lab starting in April. This will help us to test our processes and systems, including onboarding, connecting data sources, and collecting the opinions and insights of people in the lab. If you are interested in being involved and live in Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle and surrounds, find out more and express interest.

The other part of NEAC is the Systems Science Toolbox, which will enable users to model the whole energy system including electricity, gas, liquid fuels and heat, and adjacent systems such as water and transport. We have our holistic multi-energy system model in place, and are in the process of identifying, cleaning and integrating relevant data sets. The Net Zero Options for Heavy Industry project will demonstrate some of the model’s functionality in studying whole energy systems in key industrial regions.

What stakeholders are telling us

Over the last six months we have developed the NEAC concept and business case a lot further. We have also spoken to potential users to gain a deeper understanding of the need. Thank you to the many people who shared their insights. Some of the more important findings include:

• Industry leaders know that there is an absolute need for a centre that provides trusted, data-driven intelligence, helping people navigate complexity, manage risk, and drive energy transformation with clarity and confidence.
• Many people feel that CSIRO is the only national organisation that can do this, due to our range of expertise as well as our position as a trusted independent scientific body.
• The transparency of the models and data sets is vital, in order to see how conclusions have been drawn, replicate results, and compare models.
• Researchers are looking forward to streamlined, de-risked recruitment of participants, and the longevity of participation opening up opportunities for longitudinal research.
• Diversity within the Living Lab is likely to be a challenge, for the same reason it is challenging in most research studies. However, it will be important in order for researchers to achieve representative samples in their studies, and will therefore be a source of value for the Living Lab.

If you have an idea for a research project you would like to do with NEAC, or if you would like to participate in the Living Lab, please contact us at NEAC@csiro.au.