Australia’s energy system is changing, and the implications of the move towards renewable energy was high on the agenda when the CEC’s Network Specialist Tom Butler presented the opening session today at New Zealand Downstream 2016, the annual strategic forum for the country’s energy industry.
“While New Zealand has always been strong on the use of large-scale renewable energy, the uptake of solar power and storage is still very low in comparison to that in Australia,” Mr Butler said.
“This is not to say that progress has been easy in Australia, and my presentation looked at the diverse and complex changes that have occurred across our electricity markets. Some of these lessons can be useful for the New Zealand sector as well.
“South Australia for example is a world leader in integrating large amounts of renewable energy such as solar and wind power, leading to reductions in power sector emissions of more than 20 per cent over the last five years.
“It was an honour to present to such an expert audience, and I very much enjoyed the insights in the panel discussion between leading energy business CEOs that followed afterwards.”
The presentation can be downloaded from the Clean Energy Council website.
