Future energy news

Another spark in electrification of the Essential Energy footprint has ignited with our Senior Commercial Specialist Ian Askell speaking at the Electrify 244X Expo in Port Macquarie on 17 February.

The Expo provided a forum on renewable energy, home batteries, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.

Ian sat alongside eminent experts including former Federal Treasury Secretary and now Chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation Dr Ken Henry, founder and editor of Renew Economy Giles Parkinson, and founder and director of the Community Power Agency Dr Jarra Hicks.

A forum and Q&A session allowed the experts to discuss how regional communities can decarbonise their energy at the lowest cost.

“In response to our customers’ desire to decarbonise, we've developed an Essential Energy specific Electrification Strategy and 10-year high-level roadmap,” Ian says.

“We are working with our customers, from residential to large industrial, to identify their unique electrification challenges and understand how we can support them in their energy transition.

“These opportunities include things like innovation in network capacity access and tariff design to drive efficient use of the network while supporting the development of new products and services to help customers on their electrification journey.”

Ian says there are also significant long-term economic benefits to electrification, but the issue is demystifying some of the questions held by businesses and consumers.

“That’s why these opportunities to have our people involved in forums at a community level are really important and help give people a sense of how to make the move away from gas and other fossil fuels,” Ian says.

Read more about electrification

Watch our YouTube video on Essential Energy’s co-funded electrification study with Charles Sturt University.