Australian Clean Energy Summit coming to Sydney

As Australia’s energy system undergoes a period of rapid change, the senior players driving this transformation will come together in Sydney from 15-16 July at the Australian Clean Energy Summit.

The Clean Energy Council has created this stand-alone event for the first time for industry leaders to come together and engage with the important conference theme of ‘leading the energy transformation’. Following one of the toughest periods in more than a decade for Australia’s renewable energy industry, the summit will bring together heads of industry, government and finance to discuss the models, trends and technology innovations they’re leveraging to drive new renewable energy and overcome barriers to deployment.

One of the highlights of day one is set to be the session ‘The business of clean energy’, sponsored by Hydro Tasmania. The session will feature some of Australia’s leading business and political figures, including Kate Carnell, CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Geoff Culbert, president and chief executive of GE Australia; Miles George, managing director of Infigen Energy; and former Liberal Party Leader John Hewson.

The speakers will discuss the massive business opportunity for clean energy in Australia and around the world, and what needs to be done to facilitate the transition of Australia’s energy sector. Their session will be followed by a ‘power lunch’ on the future of energy utilities, with two leading analysts to discuss the future of utilities, how they can respond to the challenges of rapid disruption and change, and what it means for their business models.

The afternoon of day one will be spent examining the business opportunity in closer detail, with sessions on ‘Financing clean energy’ (sponsored by and featuring the Clean Energy Finance Corporation), ‘The Future of the energy industry’, ‘Market trends and outlook’ (sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright) and ‘Innovation — driving the transformation’ (sponsored by Autodesk).

Day Two will delve into the more technical detail, splitting into four streams: solar, wind, energy storage and grid.

While this decade looked extremely promising for wind power, the political deadlock over the review of the Renewable Energy Target in 2014 brought new investment to a halt. At the end of 2014, Australia had 1866 wind turbines operating across 71 wind farms. The wind stream will look at global markets, financing and commercialising large-scale wind, planning and community engagement.

The large-scale solar industry gained some much-needed momentum in 2014, with the 20 MW Royalla Solar Farm developed by Fotowatio Renewable Ventures officially opened in September and AGL and First Solar’s projects at Nyngan (102 MW) and Broken Hill (53 MW) making good progress. Must-attend solar stream sessions include utility-scale solar, new business models, the business case for solar and a national roundtable on product quality that aims to ‘raise the bar’.

With the review of the RET coming to a close, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry at all levels is grid connection and design. The grid stream will examine grid connection, adapting the distribution grid, transmission as an enabler of clean energy and the outlook to the future grid.

Energy storage is the new kid on the renewable energy block, and it is already making a big impression on the local industry. Storage is set to dramatically transform the way the world uses energy in the near future, and the energy storage stream will look at everything from business and residential storage to grid-based utility storage and the development of standards.

On the evening of 15 July, the Hilton Sydney will play host to the 2015 gala dinner. The Clean Energy Council Industry Awards will be announced at the dinner, and attendees will hear from a range of speakers from industry and some entertaining surprise guests.

For more details or to register to attend the Australian Clean Energy Summit, visit www.cleanenergysummit.com.au.