Last Friday, as part of a joint WADE and CSIRO conference group, I visited the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, Australia, which is the headquarters for both CSIRO Energy Technology and the Energy Transformed Flagship. The building is experimental with considerable innovation in energy design with creative ways to reduce heat and lighting requirements, as well generating electricity in a variety of ways including integrated solar panels of various types. The Centre also provides a great environment to support thinking and research projects, and foster innovation about energy and local power, ie decentralised energy and power generation. We were only afforded a brief overview, however it was heartening to see work being done on solar thermal and photovoltaic projects, wind, energy efficiency, and cogeneration. One of the projects is a called the "virtual power station", where a range of renewable energy generators, such as solar panels, could be grouped with a storage device to become a single electricity supplier, able to take advantage of high demand pricing in the network. Not only does this approach make renewable energy more dependable, projects such as the "virtual power station" increase our energy security, acting more like an energy Internet.
It was also heartening to learn that some of the projects, such as the solar thermal tower, are moving to joint venture early stage commercial projects, and that's exactly what we need...more renewable energy entrepreneurs!!
