AUS$2.17mn given to Alice Springs renewable energy project

This AUS$2.17mn (£1.19mn), two-year project will be funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). It will research ways to break down the existing technical, regulatory and economic challenges to connecting more sources of renewable energy to the city’s electricity network.

The project will be led by the Intyalheme Centre for Future Energy, which is part of the solar energy research centre Desert Knowledge Australia. It is being supported by the government of the Northern Territory.

One of the principle tasks of the Alice Springs Future Grid project will be to draw up a roadmap for how 50% of electricity in the Alice Springs grid could be supplied from renewable sources by 2030. The current figure is about 10%.

Tristan Simons, the general manager of the Intyalheme Centre for Future Energy, commented on the potential for the newly-funded project: “Alice Springs Future Grid takes a unique approach to a multi-faceted challenge, in a rapidly-changing environment.

“Alice Springs is ‘small enough to manage but big enough to matter’ and we are confident the project will not only help secure a clean and reliable energy future for the town, but the knowledge generated will have a positive flow-on effect, well beyond the other isolated electricity networks in the Northern Territory.”