Connecting IT to Australia's net zero target

In 2022, a new federal government answered Australia’s collective call for climate action; we saw a considerable push, solidifying Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. All levels of government substantially improved their climate action goals last year and the federal government legislated a 43% cut on 2005 greenhouse gas emission levels by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050.

A new energy transition report by McKinsey notes, “with its significant renewables potential and large-scale reserves of critical materials, Australia could prosper in the energy transition”. However, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said the first Annual Climate Change Statement released on 1 December 2022 shows “we are on the right track, but it is also a wake-up call for the nation to do more”.

To achieve our ambitious decarbonisation targets, Australia must double down on its renewable energy transition efforts. Achieving a sustainable, optimised, affordable energy sector means using emerging technologies that can convert data into value while smoothing out transition wrinkles.

Technological innovation essential to address the energy trilemma

The shift from centralised energy generation dominated by fossil fuels towards distributed energy resources (DERs) leveraging wind, solar and other renewables relies on transforming the traditional Operational Technology (OT) systems. However, this can be a complex process, particularly in Australia, with its varying geography, climate and energy mix.

CSIRO notes that Australia’s decentralised electricity grid is different from other countries’ because, “our demand centres (major cities) are located long distances from each other in different climate zones. As the percentage of Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) sources in the grid increases, there is a need for greater interconnection and affordable energy storage solutions”.

As such, Australia is particularly affected by the energy trilemma: supply must be reliable, sustainable and affordable. To achieve these requirements, we need to lean on innovative technology. Emerging technologies can complement energy storage capacity solutions and meet the timescales of energy demands while maintaining grid stability — and it’s increasingly affordable.

CSIRO found that compared with its 2017 GenCost report, which reported it would cost Australia a trillion dollars to convert to renewables, its new 2022 estimate has been cut in half: it’s now $500 billion. It notes, “A large part of this is because of recent technological innovation.”

However, no single technology addresses the transition to renewable energy. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reports, “technologies, such as the Internet of things, AI & Big data and blockchain, support the integration of renewables through faster response and optimised use of assets.”

Essentially, a broad range of proven solutions and new innovative technologies will accelerate progress — with support from the public sector.

Thankfully, the Australian Government stepped up in 2022 with its ‘Rewiring the Nation’ promise, a $20 billion commitment to upgrade the national electricity grid, which includes $878.2 million to back low emissions technologies.

Edge and IoT are essential enabling technologies

To meet goals and maximise reliability, affordability, and sustainability, public and private utilities can leverage modern distributed architectures and autonomous capabilities deployed at the energy network’s edge.

This can help support a distributed energy system by continuously learning changes in supply and demand and use patterns without going through a utility’s data centre. Additionally, smart IoT consumer energy systems can achieve significant efficiency gains by managing prosumer energy production, consumption and storage by offering on-demand data to better manage supply.

Like in other sectors, the role of data will be critical to future-proofing energy needs and ensuring a collaborative approach that organisations, businesses and Australians can implement.

The critical role of Operational Technology

Operational Technology (OT) is the hardware and software that operates our energy systems. It is the critical computing capability upon which national infrastructure and bulk power systems are entirely dependent. The complexity of these systems is dramatically increasing to support distributed energy resources, storage and grid endpoints like electric vehicles, smart homes, smart factories and smart offices.

All of this complexity generates vast amounts of data right at the very edges of our network, where it needs to be analysed in real time to generate actionable insights that can be acted on by a new generation of autonomous systems.

These systems will help provide demand-side management as a new critical grid capability. It will allow the optimisation of consumer and utility-scale storage and scheduling loads like EV (Electrical Vehicle) charging.

Energy-efficient supercomputers support the transition

Energy-efficient supercomputers continue to solve complex energy problems across hundreds of application areas. The HPC5 supercomputer can perform 52 million billion mathematical operations per second and is largely solar-powered. Italian energy company Eni is benefiting from the computational power of the HPC5 in working to accelerate energy research and development sustainably.

In addition, Cambridge University uses the Wilkes-3 supercomputer to carry out nuclear fusion research for power generation.

Advanced technology is propelling the energy transition forward

Transformational IT systems and a new generation of autonomous, data-driven, operational systems are vital to accelerating the energy transition and forging a low-carbon future with abundant, affordable energy.

By investing in revolutionary clean energy technologies, public sector authorities will drastically improve outlooks and set Australia up for future success. We’ve set the right goals, and we’ve got the right tech — in 2023, it’s time to put it to use.

Image credit: iStock.com/Black_Kira