About NEAC
Why do we need NEAC?
Decarbonising our heavily intertwined energy systems is a huge challenge. Success depends on how we bring together various factors like technology, regulations, economics, and environmental and social considerations into a dynamic and interconnected system that evolves over time.
Integrating energy sectors: Traditionally, energy sectors like electricity, heat, hydrogen, natural gas, oil, and coal have largely operated in isolation. But now, as we undertake this massive transformation, they must work together. Additionally, we need to consider practical constraints like carbon emissions, water usage, climate impact, supply chains, labour and capital as we evolve.
Empowering energy consumers: Gone are the days when energy consumers were passive recipients of services. Now, consumer energy resources are becoming increasingly vital components of the overall energy system and need to be integrated in a way that maintains grid stability and social equity.
Leveraging digitalisation: The widespread use of digital technology can significantly ease the challenges of this transformation. By coordinating operations efficiently, we can maximise the use of assets, reduce operating costs, and ensure system reliability.
Promoting open science and collaboration: To tackle this complex issue, we must streamline and democratise analytical capabilities. This means embracing open-science principles and collaborating across ecosystems, drawing on the latest in digital and systems science.
NEAC equips Australia with a collaborative platform for multi-energy systems research. By putting people at the heart of the energy transformation, it equips decision-makers with meaningful insights, spurs innovation, and drives progress for all. We champion transparency, fostering a more informed and empowered society.
Components of NEAC
Living Lab
NEAC’s Living gives researchers easy access to a pre-recruited pool of Australian households and businesses, to test energy-related hypotheses at scale, fast. The lab includes diverse participants across Australia including hard-to-reach demographics, streamlined recruitment, and built-in research infrastructure. From researchers needing faster, more diverse recruitment, to innovators seeking large-scale real-world data for investors, to policy makers testing real impact, the NEAC Living Lab makes it easy.
Emphasising privacy, the Living Lab will operate as a distinct entity within NEAC, complete with its own robust data management infrastructure, APIs, and access controls.
Systems Science Toolbox
The Systems Science Toolbox provides curated, clean datasets and transparent models, streamlining your path to analysis. It enables you to model the whole energy system flexibly across spatial scales, including electricity, gas, liquid fuels and heat, and adjacent systems such as water and transport. With seamless integration into existing workflows to reduce setup time, you can focus on what really matters: delivering high-impact insights to drive real change.
The Systems Science Toolbox includes a layer of access management, storage, and API provisioning to ensure security and accessibility.
Applying systems science to the energy ecosystem
Systems science is the science of how the pieces of a complex system interact. Modern systems science offers the tools to structure, guide, and reduce the risks involved in complex socio-technical system design and transformation.
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) supports the application of systems science by using models to represent complex systems throughout their lifecycle.
The energy ecosystem and its transformation are very complex, so the National Energy Analysis Centre has been founded on cutting-edge systems science. A key tool in the Systems Science Toolbox is the multi-energy systems model, developed using MBSE. The model includes all energy types, key inputs and outputs, as well as water and transportation. It can be used to model energy scenarios with preserved resolution across various scales, from precinct to nation, answering questions with cross-sectoral dependencies.
[Stephen Craig sitting at desk]
Stephen Craig: “Systems science is the science of how pieces of a puzzle come together in a complex system problem. It includes how you describe the complex system, and how you analyse and quantify the behaviour of that complex system to answer a research question.
We need systems science in the energy transformation, because the energy transformation is a great example of a complex systems problem.
To achieve net zero by transforming the energy system, we have to understand how the different pieces come together and interact to achieve that outcome.
Systems science allows energy stakeholders to structure, understand and de-risk decisions, as we progress the energy transformation from the legacy system to the future net zero system.”
What’s all the fuss about systems science?
We are currently recruiting the first group of people into the Living Lab, and building functionality for the Systems Science Toolbox. If you would like to discuss opportunities to use NEAC, please reach out to us.
Services
As Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO is well positioned to support governments, industries and communities through the energy transition.
Part of our role is to be a custodian of national research infrastructure on behalf of the nation. That is why we are building the National Energy Analysis Centre.
You can use NEAC to:
- Conduct research ranging from a single survey to a multi-year trial with installed energy monitoring devices
- Test new energy products in homes and businesses and understand the implications for the broader system
- Monitor and evaluate consumer energy programs
- Model parts of the energy system, or all of it, including interactions with other systems such as water and transport. Model at scales ranging from suburbs and industrial hubs to the whole country.
- Support decarbonisation goals with enhanced regional energy system planning
- Evaluate energy security and resilience across jurisdictions in a range of existing and future scenarios
NEAC is noncompetitive
NEAC serves as a versatile tool, augmenting and streamlining existing analytical processes. It offers an open reference architecture that seamlessly integrates multi-energy systems with other complex systems, empowering stakeholders with a holistic decision-making capability.
Crucially, NEAC will operate collaboratively. By fostering interdisciplinary connections, NEAC provides a panoramic view of outcomes and impacts, facilitating informed decision-making across sectors and disciplines.