RACE to the future: RACE for 2030 July newsletter by racefor2030

Message from the CEO

Dear partners and other key stakeholders,

I’d like to take the opportunity in my first newsletter to thank Jon Jutsen for the instrumental role he played in building and delivering RACE to this point and for bringing me to RACE last year as Chief Research Officer (CRO). I’d also like to thank the previous CRO, Dr Chris Dunstan and Professor Stuart White for their roles in setting up this wonderful organisation.

We’ve had a busy second quarter with over 65 expressions of interest lodged and 30 projects in full applications stage. In June, the RACE Board approved an exciting major project titled ‘Scenarios for Future Living’ that brings four of our research partners together for a truly multi-disciplinary research program focused directly on residential consumers.

We are encouraged by the increased focus that demand-side and consumer energy solutions are currently receiving but remain acutely aware of the need to bring our industry, government and research skills together to ensure solutions in this space reach their full potential.

We would like to thank Professor Amory Lovins for bringing his unique world-leading skills in integrative design to our Australian shores in May. We hope to see our partners that joined Amory’s Masterclass workshops translate and develop their own integrated solutions within their businesses. We would also like to acknowledge our partners, the Energy Efficiency Council (EEC) for their skill and effort in delivering our joint Industrial Decarbonisation Summit.

It was an excellent and important event we were pleased to partner with them on. Finally, thanks to UNSW for hosting our Accelerator Event in April. At this event, our industry partners brought their challenges to our research community. We aim to develop more of these events to help our industry and research partners co-design innovative solutions to decarbonise our economy.

Bill Lilley, CEO RACE for 2030

Energy Upgrades for Australian Homes Get involved

The ‘Energy Upgrades for Australian Homes (EUAH)’ project, led by Monash and managed by Climate-KIC, recently completed its second Industry Reference Group (IRG) meeting, showcasing significant progress. Each Work Package presented their findings to date, including a presentation on the successful first stage of the ‘Geelong Electric Homes pilot’. Dan Cowdell, CEO of Geelong Sustainability, RACE’s partner for the pilot, also outlined the ongoing development of the second stage. Slides from the IRG meeting will be available on the RACE website shortly.

Keeping the theme of EUAH, the ‘APY Lands’ pilot project held its second Partner Group meeting in May. Co-managed by the SA Department of Energy & Mining and UniSA, this important pilot tested potential materials in two test rooms in Adelaide in April. Installation of the pilot retrofits is due to be completed by 1 November 2024.

Solar Pre-Cooling and Heating

Many of our partners will have received invitations from Simon Heslop or Mike Roberts to join in the development of the UNSW proposal ‘Solar Pre-Cooling and Heating’. For more information on this proposal and its research aims, please contact: Simon Heslop at s.heslop@unsw.edu.au.

Energy Flexibility for Water Corporations

Energy Flex for Water Corps – the current research results for the Coliban Water Epsom (Bendigo) site have included the integration of a load management model with peer-to-peer energy trading simulation and a nearby virtual power plant of 500 households with distributed energy resources, complemented by a communitybased battery system for renewable energy storage, sharing, and trading.

Although the precise results are confidential, they do indicate significant energy cost savings for the Coliban Water site and additional work is underway to

optimise the model and demonstrate the best blend of benefits for the utility and the surrounding communities.

The research team at RMIT, led by Prof Rebecca Yang, is interested in engaging with both water treatment utilities, DNSPs and other sites.

These sites have the same combination of electricity consumption, flexible loads, onsite renewables generation, local solar PV and community batteries. These can be integrated as part of a localised system optimisation.

The ‘Business Power Flex’ project is developing several interesting pilots with project partners, which include commercial buildings, a supermarket, an airport and EV charging. However, the project team is looking at additional pilots to supplement the current mix.

Biomethane Industry

RACE is keen to support the development of the domestic biomethane industry and are looking for proposals relating to either the research roadmap identified in the ‘Anaerobic digestion Opportunity Assessment’ and any other issues, including barriers or opportunities, relating to the biomethane industry being developed at scale and pace.

In particular, RACE would like to initiate a project on digestate assessment and standardisation given the potential financial impact this can have on project economics. We have a really strong research team and are looking for non-research partners to support this work.

RACE would also like to initiate a project on refining the real potential for biomethane by investigating feedstocks, in particular how anaerobic codigestion can be used to optimise biomethane production, and how behind-the-meter biomethane projects can contribute to industrial decarbonisation in regional areas.

Research update

As we enter our 5th year, we are excited to share our wins to date with the RACE community.

Our very first research project commenced in October 2020, 3 months from our CRC inception. Since then, RACE has approved over 100 projects.

As always, we look forward to receiving your research project submissions.

Keep in mind, you need to have an industry partner!

Exciting future projects

Australian Consumers at the Heart of the EV Transition

This project aims to explore the issues and challenges that will face all Australian consumers during the EV transition by understanding their lived experience. It is carried out in partnership with UTS, University of Canberra, Ausgrid, NSW DCCEEW, WA DEMIRS and Schneider Electric. The research will focus on all consumer behavioural aspects of EVs – including, but not limited to, purchase, charging, servicing, service use, battery management, driving and use patterns, and energy consumption. In-person, qualitative ethnographic interviews with consumers will be conducted alongside quantitative survey research to go beyond existing consumer sentiment surveys to tell us not only the what, but also the how and why concerning EV consumer behaviours in Australia.

Outputs, including research insights and recommendations will be co-designed with consumers and industry to put end users at the heart of the process. The approach of both qualitative and quantitative behavioural research has been successfully demonstrated in areas such as public health and energy conservation, and through this innovative approach effective solutions can be found to the technical, infrastructure, policy and behavioural challenges surrounding a successful transition to EVs.

For more information, please contact: Oliver Hill

oliver.hill@racefor2030.com.au

Australian Workforce Projections: The next stage

Leveraging the 2022 RACE project that modelled workforce projections for the Integrated System Plan, the team at UTS Institute of Sustainable Futures is now updating projection methodologies and applying them in a range of settings. They have teamed up again with AEMO to develop projections for the ‘2024 Integrated System Plan’, with “Electricity Sector Workforce Projections” now a key deliverable of the Plan, and are also working with other jurisdictions to tackle the merging of different scenarios and energy markets to approach a whole of Australia workforce projection.

Ask The Energy System: AI Assisted Energy Modelling

The RACE for Networks program is pleased to announce the launch of our latest project, ‘Ask the Energy System’, in collaboration with RedGridGPT and Monash. This innovative project is set to explore new opportunities to model, understand and manage energy systems using AI-assisted tools.

In our transitioning energy environment, the ability to model and adapt to consumer driven technology adoption is critical. The ability to consider diverse and dynamic system settings, real or simulated, offers new and important capability to electricity network operation, policy development, energy product innovators and built environment developers.

The project will integrate advanced gaming and VR software to automate the creation

of network environments. Integration of generative AI will allow proprietary information to be incorporated into the model to allow specific network, industry or community use case exploration.

The outputs of this short project will advance new and sophisticated options for future energy modelling that is easy to query and understand emerging challenges as well as propose or test future scenarios for a range of industry stakeholders.

This project not only considers immediate industry needs but also sets the stage for future advancements in energy management, contributing to Australia's net zero goals.

The project will be led by Assoc. Professor Markus Wagner from Monash together with Simon Wilson, CEO of RedgridGPT.

For more information, please contact: Neil Horrocks

neil.horrocks@racefor2030.com.au

Digital Twin enabled Sustainable Sunshine Precinct Development

The `Digital Twin enabled Sustainable Sunshine Precinct Development’ project, led by RMIT and the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, and a range of supporting partners, including C4NET, is now well underway. This project offers a unique opportunity to transform the Sunshine Precinct into a model of sustainable urban development. By utilising the capabilities of digital twin technology in urban planning, the project will provide insightful data-driven decisionmaking support, enhancing urban resilience against climate change and other environmental challenges.

This project aims to inform planning processes providing a comprehensive analysis of a wide spectrum of sustainable urban design strategies. By addressing urban heat, water efficiency, embodied energy and renewable energy transition opportunities, the project will support the creation of a resilient urban precinct, capable of adapting to future environmental and infrastructural challenges. Additionally, the project provides a platform for collaboration among stakeholders, fostering a community-centric approach to urban development.

Scenarios for Future Living

RACE is excited to announce the impending ‘Scenarios for Future Living’ project led by Monash, UNSW and UTS. This large-scale three-year project incorporates work packages that understand household practices and lifestyles with those concentrated on future energy sector scenario forecasting.

Consumers are shaping the future energy system through their adoption of Consumer Energy Resources (CER), such as household solar PV, batteries and electric vehicles, alongside other emerging technologies. Exactly how these new energy and digital technologies will be used in the future is largely unknown, as are how household practices will change in response to lived experience circumstances like increasing extreme weather events, remote work, and concerns about health and safety at home.

The Monash ‘Digital Energy Futures (DEF)’ project (2019-2023) developed and tested an innovative methodology which introduced qualitative data into a set of four scenarios for future living. The ‘Scenarios for Future Living’ project takes this research forward by enabling the genuine incorporation of social trends into energy modelling and forecasting and improving future-focused products and services.

Developing and iteratively updating an evidence base that identifies and tracks household expectations and practices is a key challenge for energy sector planning. This knowledge is urgently needed to inform forecasting, scenario planning, policy making, foresighting and the development of future-focused products and services.

This project provides a significant foundational step to creating a ‘Living Lab’ approach in Australia that would enable changing consumer preferences, attitudes and behaviours to dynamically inform the energy transition through enhanced integrated systems modelling and planning.

Our latest reports

Energy Management Information System (EMIS) Activity Analysis

The latest project report from the CSIRO-led White Certificate project outlines opportunities within commercial buildings, through their Energy Management Information System (EMIS). This report details the incentives for EMIS – a key technology within Industry 4.0 for:

• Tracking energy savings progress.

• Energy-saving data analytics services.

• Enabling flexible demand management.

EMIS technology can turbocharge building energy efficiency and White Certificate Schemes could soon reward building owners for embracing the technology. This progress report looks at how buildings could potentially qualify for these rewards. It also examines suitable calculation methods for determining how many certificates an EMIS implementation could potentially earn.

The report was prepared in consultation with EMIS providers and measurement and verification (M&V) professionals. White Certificate Scheme Administrators will now consider the recommendations. Ready to unlock the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) and revolutionise your building’s energy savings? Read the report here.

Benchmarking customer priorities and trust in the energy sector

Building a successful energy transition in Australia hinges on customer confidence and engagement with the energy system. We are pleased to announce the release of our latest report, ‘Benchmarking customer priorities and trust’. This report delves into the factors influencing customer trust within the energy sector.

With over 64 actors identified in this study who are involved in creating trust in the energy system – where do you start? Consumers were able to identify which actors should be activated, who should lead changing the energy system and initiatives that could foster trust in the energy system.

The survey and customer workshops found the most trusted actors in the energy sector were electricians, the CSIRO and universities, with energy retailers amongst the least trusted actors. With electricians and providers of energy equipment (think EVs!) key to the energy transition, understanding more about the role they play in engaging customers and building trust is vital.

Electric Vehicles Preferences of Australian Consumers

An appendix to the Benchmarking customer priorities and trust research, Electric Vehicle preferences of Australian Consumers was a co-designed research project with Ausgrid and Western Power that leveraged the Benchmarking Customers survey sample.

The research found that an approximately equal number of respondents (40%) prioritised fast charging at home, or fast charging at home with the potential to power their home from the battery (V2H). Only 10% were intending to charge via a slow charger at home. Respondents preferred overnight charging, and were least likely to charge their EV in the middle of the day, with solar PV ownership influencing the likelihood of EV charging behaviour during the day. However, only 11% suggested they could not be incentivised to shift their time of charging.

Giving Power to Energy Networks: Are Australian households willing to adopt demand-side management programs

One of the key challenges facing the energy sector is how to address grid instability and high pricing during peak demand periods. Demand-side management (DSM) is one solution to this problem. DSM encompasses several strategies that aim to modify consumer energy demand, at the household level. These strategies range from alerting households when their energy consumption is high to energy networks having the ability to curtail certain household appliances during periods of peak demand. Therefore, DSM requires energy networks to have some degree of visibility and/or control of household’s real-time energy consumption.

In the ‘Giving Power to Energy Networks’ report, QUT and Essential Energy investigated whether energy utilities have sufficient social license to operate (SLO) for their customers to be willing to sign up for DSM and provide them with the visibility and/or control they need for these programs to be successful. SLO scores indicate that consumers are more likely to accept DSM programs that give networks visibility over those that give networks control. Therefore, utilities should prioritise visibility DSM programs to appeal to the largest number of households. Of those that were willing to participate in DSM programs, they were most likely to give access to their air conditioners and hot water systems, and least likely to give access to their EV chargers or heaters.

The findings indicate that energy consumers do not believe that energy utilities act in their best interests or consider their concerns when making decisions regarding DSM. To address these negative perceptions, networks need to focus on facilitating consumer feedback and giving consumers an opportunity to contribute to decisions that impact them.

The research also reconfirmed that utilities should make it easy for consumers to access the information needed to make a decision regarding DSM, and that information about DSM is supported by a trusted source. The research also found that consumers were not influenced in their decision-making depending on whether social, environmental or economic benefits were emphasised when communicating about DSM.

Stakeholders interested in finding out more are invited to attend a webinar on the research findings on the 8th of August. See our ‘Save the date’ section for more details.

PhD Program

“For a PhD scholarship program with real professional development and community, reach out today! For example, two of our PhD’s finished econome’s Climate Stream program.”

In a first, the RACE for 2030 Industry PhD Program cohort attended the RACE for 2030 quarterly on-site for a one-day workshop. Each student gave a 10min presentation of their progress to both their fellow peers, and to RACE staff. This event demonstrated the great breadth of knowledge, learning, and synergies across the whole program of PhD projects. Many students commented on how great it was to meet and learn about their fellow peers studying similar projects they could learn from, and whom they could connect with. Furthermore, during this session we had some great feedback from students about the desire to have more networking and industry internship-style opportunities. This is something RACE for 2030 is looking to explore more proactively in the coming months for our students.

- Drew Wiseham, PhD Coordinator

Finally, the students finished their day with a couple of hours of improvisation training learning some fun games and systems to hone their collaboration, communication, and risk-taking skills. As researchers, these skills in their role as the next wave of Australian innovators is so critical to exploring new ways of doing things and solving problems through rigorous testing. The students had a blast, and the facilitators from Improv Theatre Sydney tailored the session to our needs perfectly!

Save the date

We hope to see you at our events over the next few months!

Interested in seeing R32 and CO2 heat pump solutions up close? The A2EP heat pump tour series continues at the Brimbank Aquatic & Wellness Centre and attendees will have the opportunity to speak with experts and meet industry professionals. Get your ticket for the 7th of August tour in Brimbank Victoria.

In the upcoming ‘Giving Power to Energy Networks’ report, QUT and Essential Energy investigated whether energy utilities have sufficient social license to operate (SLO) for their customers to be willing to sign up for DSM and provide them with the visibility and/or control they need for these programs to be successful. The webinar will be taking place on the 8th of August at 10 - 11am AEST. Join the webinar to find out all the research findings.

We are proud sponsors of Mobility Live in Melbourne. RACE for EVs Program Leader, Oliver Hill will be speaking during this two day event in October. Learn more.

Event recap

24/7 TRUZERO

Hourly time matching of renewable electricity generation and consumption – as the current project draws to a close, the UNSW research team, led by Anna Bruce, is looking at what the next research question is for this issue. The current international focus on hourly time-matching renewable electricity use for green hydrogen is one area of potential interest. For the built environment sectors, looking at how 24/7 TRUZERO can be integrated into reporting and rating schemes, particularly looking at how EV charging can be integrated to optimise consumption during the solar soak period, is another potential area of research interest. For C&I customers, the intersection of electrification and decarbonisation via RE PPAs and the role of flexibility for network integration in parallel with RE procurement/greenhouse gas emission (GHG) objectives is an area of research interest, particularly how storage, such as EV charging, could be integrated most effectively.

The final seminar for the 24/7 project was held on Wednesday 19th of June.

As part of the project completion we will also be releasing a video diving deeper into the project and its outcomes. In the meantime, watch the seminar!

Accelerator and partner event

Accelerator partner event

RACE for 2030 held a successful Accelerator and partner networking event in partnership with the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub at UNSW in April.

The energy at the Accelerator event was electric as researchers, industry leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about driving change came together with creativity and a collaborative spirit to tackle a range of decarbonisation challenges. The event comprised 10 concurrent sessions covering a wide range of topics, including Consumer Energy Resources, insulation, demand flexibility, Virtual Power Plants, and the built environment.

The partner networking event brought together many of our existing as well as some new partners. We enjoyed an update from both RACE and the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub as well as engaging conversations over networking drinks during the evening. It was a day filled with thought provoking dialogue, and new approaches to problem-solving. We would like to thank everyone who participated for making the events successful. We hope you met many new people and engaged in a conversation that sparked a new idea for you and your organisation. We’re excited to see these collaborations develop and what innovative solutions emerge!

Watch the highlights with industry experts sharing their thoughts.

RACE

in partnership with

RACE for 2030 co-hosted renowned energy expert, Professor Amory Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute, with the Energy Efficiency Council for a busy week in May.

Professor Amory Lovins has been called the ‘Albert Einstein of energy efficiency.’ He has been writing and talking about energy policy, renewable energy, sustainability and energy efficiency for over 50 years. His views have been crucial to our understanding of energy efficiency.

During his one week visit to Australia, Professor Lovins had a packed schedule.

He taught multiple days of his Stanford course, Extreme Energy Efficiency, where he taught the 10 principles of integrative design, a method that delivers significant savings in energy, resources and costs. The participants worked together in multi-disciplinary teams to apply these principles and learned to approach problems with a beginner’s mind.

Amory Lovins also delivered keynotes at both the Industrial Decarbonisation Summit and the Energy Efficiency Council’s National Conference hosted at the UNSW Roundhouse during 3 successive days.

His keynotes at these events were a highlight, advocating the need to take an integrative design approach and that it is fact, cheaper, not more expensive, to adopt a more efficient and integrative whole of system approach.

He spoke about “negawatts” and “flexawatts”, rewarding engineers and architects for what they save instead of what they spend, the 10 carbon-free ways to get the grid in balance, turning the 60-80 barriers into opportunities, rethinking our models as change is happening exponentially, paying attention to energy opportunities, and that we need to simply stop having outdated ideas.

Professor Lovins also engaged with government staff, ministers, and party members and the ABC in both NSW and Canberra during his visit.

There was also a podcast shared by SwitchedOn which was recorded prior to Professor Amory Lovins landing in Australia.

Power + Utilities Recap

RACE for EVs Program Leader, Oliver Hill, provides a recap from the Power + Utilities Australia panel on V2G he participated in on the 8th of May with regular EV experts and commentators Riccardo Pagliarella, PhD, and Laura Jones. Excellently hosted by Ross De Rango.

There was great engagement with the topics discussed on the day, and a quick publication from The Driven speaks to the interest in taking conversations on V2G beyond giddy excitement to practical discussion on how we can develop this technology to be consumer centric and equitable.

Oliver Hill Recap

What is the role of research in V2G?

We can see today that V2G works and in fact has worked for a while, but how we plan for implementation over the next 5 or 10 years requires strategic thinking that can see how the impacts of the technology may impact our transportation and energy systems. Research has a role to play here in developing our longer term understanding of how V2G may applied and the impacts it could create.

How does the interplay of different sectors impact acceptance?

For every interaction with EVs and in the future V2G, there is an impression made on a consumer who will carry that forward with them. So for every supply chain interruption, breakdown of charging infrastructure, difficulty in purchase or repairs, and outrageous insurance premium we are creating a picture for future consumers who depending on what it looks like may not want to get involved. We (influencers and decision makers) need to recognise that the barriers to V2G and EV adoption don’t exist in a vacuum, which is why having ‘real talk’ on the $ value and opportunity is so important.

What are the social dimensions of V2G we might be missing?

Building further on points emphasising the need for consumer centric design. As EV and eventually V2G adoption grows it will be important to ensure we keep investing in an equitably design system of transportation and mobility. Early use of EVs and V2G is a privilege not everyone can afford and designing our system for the fortunate few is a sure fire way to divert attention from critical public mobility infrastructure which still is and always has been the most efficient method of transporting customers from A to B. Final point is that as early influencers in this space we should be advocating for products that emphasise efficiency and practicality over unnecessary capacity and utility (was entertaining to see the Driven pick up my ‘powering your pizza oven while camping’ comment).

I look forward to more engagement on this topic and conversations on how we can involve all consumers equitably in the EV transition through opportunities such as V2G.