Day one: Session Energy innovation and technology: integration of renewable energy and customer energy

Gregor Verbic

Co-Chair ERICA Associate Professor, The University of Sydney

Capacity firming provided by prosumer-owned solar-battery systems

Gregor Verbic is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Sydney and Director of the Centre for Future Energy Networks. His expertise is in power system operation, stability and control, and electricity markets. His current research focuses on grid and market integration of distributed energy resources and large-scale renewables, future grid modelling and scenario analysis, and demand response. He was a recipient of the IEEE Power and Energy Society Prize Paper Award in 2006. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

Madison Sturgess

Energy Innovation Officer, Queensland Farmers’ Federation

The flow-on benefits of microgrids in agriculture

Madison is a cleantech specialist and media producer with experience across tech start-ups, agriculture, film and TV, and international development sectors. Her cleantech experience includes developing microgrids and clean energy cooking alternatives with rural Haitian communities by way of Washington DC. Madison currently works with Queensland Farmers’ Federation driving the research, feasibility, and implementation of microgrid projects for regional communities.

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Thomas Longden

Research Fellow, Australian National University

Waiting to generate: an analysis of wind and solar project development lead-times in Australia’s National Electricity Market

Dr Thomas Longden is a Fellow working on the ANU Energy Change Institute’s Grand Challenge – Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific. He is based at the Crawford School of Public Policy. Thomas holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and his main areas of research interest are applied econometrics, environmental economics, energy economics and health economics. His work on energy, applied econometrics and technological change has been published in leading international journals (including Nature Energy, Climatic Change, Energy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Energy Policy and Health Economics).

Ed Langham

Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Ed specialises in low-carbon energy transitions, working with new and emerging energy market players to develop Decentralised Energy Resources to accelerate climate action. He works on energy strategy and planning, business model development, open data mapping tools and regulatory reform for the new energy landscape. Ed has driven much of the Institute for Sustainable Futures’ work on Network Opportunity Mapping and Local Electricity Trading, as concepts to keep public grid assets viable, and open up neighbourhood scale business models in an era of distributed generation and storage. He has worked extensively with local and state governments, universities, utilities and precinct developers, and served in governance roles for the Coalition for Community Energy (C4CE) and Pingala Community Renewables.