Townsville is situated in the dry tropics of Northern Queensland and on the door step of tropical Asia. It has significant distributed energy resources, form with demonstration projects such as Townsville Solar Cities and Energy Sense Communities, an engaged council and university and substantial interest in building utility scale renewables. It is ideally positioned to be an Innovation Hub for Energy in the Tropics to help Australia and the Region achieve a cleaner, secure and affordable energy future. A collaborative and partner model would develop and integrate technologies such as renewables, storage, smart and micro grids, off grid, energy efficiency, demand management and electric transport. Disaster resiliency could also be a key focus using spatial 3D modelling.

1. A Cleaner, Secure & Affordable Energy
Future
Townsville’s Role?
Subheading
Ian McLeod
2nd
November 2016

2. Creating Ideas To Achieve What?
• Where does Australia want to go?
• What is the Vision that will unite us?
• Where are the opportunities to create value?
• What are we good at and how do we leverage that?
• How do we fund our ideas or should they be self
funding?
We need to agree a balanced set of objectives. My own
industry is a case in point……

3. Energy Supply - From Chaos
Chaos
Source: AER- State Of The Energy Market 2015
• Cost Of Capital
• Increased
redundancy
• Carbon Tax
• Renewable Energy
Target
• Premium Feed In
Tariffs
• Increase demand
• Mining boom
• Smart Meters (Vic)

4. ….Poor Policy & Consequences
• Queensland Premium Feed In
Tariffs liability $4.4B to 2028
• $831.2M included in Ergon’s
revenue for 2015-20 or $1,123 per
ave per customer
Ergon Rooftop Solar

5. .... & More Chaos
....Tassie constrained & SA went black

6. On The Positive
• Australia expected to surpass its 2020 abatement
target by 78Mt CO2e
• Well placed to achieve 64 to 65% decrease in
emissions per $ of GDP; &
• 50 to 52% per capita between 2005 & 2030
Source: Australian
Government, Department of the
Environment: Fact Sheet

7. Energy Productivity Is Critical But Late
to The Party
Ergon
Residential
Customers
reduced their
annual
consumption
by 22%
between
2009/10 &
2015/16

8. “A Cleaner, Secure & Affordable Energy Future”
This should be our shared goal

9. Significant Opportunities In Energy
• Carbon Reduction Target: 26-28% by 2030
• Renewable Target: 33,000GWh by 2020
• Energy Productivity Target: 40% improvement by 2030
• Emissions Reduction Fund & ARENA
• Queensland Renewable Target: 3000MW of solar or 1
million rooftops by 2020 & 50% renewable by 2030
• The North Australia Plan including funding source
• The Asian Century & Energy Poor
• Could be the nations leader in Large Scale Renewable
• The $542M Community Service Obligation
• Disaster Resilience & Recovery Funding

10. Townsville Well Positioned
• Located in the Tropics
• Head Office of Australia’s largest utility
• Hosted award winning & transformational projects like
Solar Cities & Townsville Energy Sense Community
• Ergon leadership in disruptive technologies –
Distributed Energy Resources, Demand Management
& Spatial Intelligence
• JCU University
• Engaged Council
• Overseas companies wanting to use Oz as a sandpit
But ground is now being lost to other states

11. Opportunity: Energy Innovation Hub
• Demonstration Precinct
• District Cooling
• Micro Grid
• Renewables & Storage

12. Opportunity: Innovation Hub for
Energy in the Tropics
Energy Efficiency
Energy Security
Demand Management
Renewables
Energy Storage
Smart Grids
Micro Grids
Electric Transport
Energy Efficiency
Energy Security
Demand Management
Renewables
Energy Storage
Smart Grids
Micro Grids
Electric Transport
Industry
Universities/Schools
Govt/ARENA/CEFC
Developers/Contractor
s
Technology Partners
International COE
Consumers/Community
Producers
Industry
Universities/Schools
Govt/ARENA/CEFC
Developers/Contractor
s
Technology Partners
International COE
Consumers/Community
Producers
TechnologyTechnology
CollaborationCollaboration
Innovation
Hub for
Energy in the
Tropics
Innovation
Hub for
Energy in the
Tropics

13. Opportunities: The Asian Century
There are 120M people in the ASEAN region without
power and 276M people using biomass for cooking.
Only 30% of
PNG’s
population have
electricity

14. Getting More Out
Of Existing
Resources• Powerlink has
capacity for another
Townsville.
• Ergon has around
700MW under control
• Develop Load
following supply to
optimise grid & Solar
• Tariffs have been
restructured
• Co-generation
Illustration Source: Ergon Energy 2015/16 Annual Report

15. Some Other Ideas
• Establish Townsville as a Centre Of Excellence for
energy in the tropics
• Townsville City Council & Govt set net neutral carbon
goals and an orderly pathway – Look at South Australia
• Establish community wide Energy Productivity Targets
• Aggregate efficiency programs & bid to the Emission
Reduction Fund.
• Develop policies to support micro grids
• Smart street lighting
• Promote and educate on new smart tariffs
• Leader in Disaster Resilience Planning
• Develop local capability and scale to Asia

16. Join the conversation:
#ideas_tsv