UK and Australia working together on energy transition

By Stephen Craig

One of the first countries to set a net zero by 2050 target, the United Kingdom have reduced their carbon emissions by 50% since 1990 including almost 40% renewables in their energy mix, and as of September 2024, no coal-fired power generation. Despite some local differences (snowfall vs heat waves, wind curtailment vs solar curtailment, not to mention gas boilers), Australia and the UK are facing similar challenges to the energy transition so the two countries could learn from each other.

The CSIRO has partnered with United Kingdon Research and Innovation (UKRI) to increase the research and innovation impact to address the world’s most pressing challenges. As part of this arrangement, the UK’s Energy Systems Catapult is providing in-kind support to help Smart Energy set up the National Energy Analysis Centre’s Living Lab.

I was lucky enough to visit the Energy Systems Catapult team in July, along with some of their truly inspiring energy transformation colleagues across the land that gave us cricket.

Energy Systems Catapult

The UK’s Energy Systems Catapult aims to help the country reach net zero by supporting innovation across homes, systems and networks. Their Living Lab includes almost 3000 homes who test new energy products, services and policies, de-risking innovations and helping to design future market and regulatory arrangements. More than half of participants have smart meters, enabling rich quantitative de-identified data on experiments.

The Energy Systems Catapult team have given us a lot of excellent advice on how to set up our Living Lab, as we move into the pilot phase over the next few months. For example they shared the importance of participant experience to maintain engagement, and their most successful techniques for participant recruitment and retention. It was heartening to learn how a Living Lab research facility can have a self-sustaining business model, covering its costs whilst delivering public good research.

While I was there, I explored opportunities to expand our collaboration with Energy Systems Catapult outside of the Living Lab, such as with digital innovation and local area energy planning.

PNDC

The Power Networks Demonstration Centre, known as PNDC, is an energy systems research and testing facility at the University of Strathclyde outside of Glasgow with similarities to the Renewable Energy Integration Facility and related infrastructure at our own CSIRO Energy Centre. It has been used to study cyber security threats on energy networks, test fault passage indicators, conduct numerous studies on the impacts of EVs and EV infrastructure, and many other things in its decade of operation.

PNDC is part of the Energy Systems Catapult’s  Whole Energy Systems Accelerator. By combining the capabilities of the PNDC with the Energy Systems Catapult’s Living Lab, it is possible to play out future scenarios: the Living Lab participants trial energy innovations as they go about their daily lives, then PNDC tests the implications for the system in their lab, and emulated market signals can be fed back to the Living Lab participants to close the loop.  I was inspired to see how they connect a system-focused research facility to real people in real environments, in order to really understand the impact and potential of energy innovation.

Electricity System Operator (ESO)

ESO are the equivalent of the AEMO in Australia. I was struck by the advances they have made in energy digitalisation, especially their Data Sharing Infrastructure initiative and the relevance to Australia’s CER Data Framework and NEAC’s Data Nexus.

The UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero has also just released a feasibility study examining the concept of data sharing infrastructure for the energy system, and their own response to the study. It is highly insightful reading as we develop the National Energy Analysis Centre (NEAC) and embark on broader energy digitalisation activities in Australia.

Tyseley Energy Park

Tyseley Energy Park, in Birmingham UK, is a research centre and innovation incubator developing low and zero carbon technologies, including fuels from waste, hydrogen production and use, smart grids, and heating and cooling technologies.

I was struck by the novel whole-of-system approach, with close to 30 local innovation companies working together with academic researchers from the University of Birmingham. And they are doing it alongside a steel wire company that has been innovating on the site for over 300 years! The results show that it is a winning combination.

Collaboration for the win

Australia and the UK are involved in a number of other international collaborations supporting the energy transformation, including:

• The Global Power System Transformation Consortium (G-PST) – CSIRO and AEMO are Australian representatives in the global consortium
• Mission Innovation – CSIRO is the technical lead of the Smart Grid Innovation Challenge
• International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) – CSIRO’s John Ward is vice-chair and the Australian representative on ISGAN.
• The two countries recently funded seven green hydrogen projects through the Clean Tech Partnership. The UK has been the most popular destination for hydrogen researcher fellowships, with nine Australian scientists and engineers heading to England to collaborate with colleagues on research into hydrogen production, storage, utilisation and cross-cutting fields of research.

Collaborations help to accelerate and scale innovation and de-risk our activities, because we learn from each other rather than inventing everything from scratch.

Our Smart Energy team will continue to build relationships with energy transition leaders in the UK to share insights and bring back lessons to Australia. Except during the Ashes series.