View the recording and slides: Solar power and the energy transition
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Powering the Future seminar #2
The second seminar in the Powering the Future series was presented by Jessamine Welsh from Spark-North East Link-D&C.
Solar power is central to decarbonisation, yet its deployment at scale continues to face practical, technical, and policy-related challenges. While costs have fallen and ambition has grown, increasing solar uptake requires more than just installing capacity, it depends on how projects and cities are planned, integrated, and supported across the broader energy system. A key consideration is the importance of early planning and engagement. Integrating solar into projects from the outset, alongside meaningful collaboration with communities, regulators, and industry, can significantly improve outcomes and reduce delays. At the same time, growing penetration of solar introduces new challenges for grid resilience, requiring careful attention to system stability, storage, and infrastructure upgrades to ensure reliability.
Policy and regulatory settings remain central to enabling investment at scale. This includes the design of connection processes, transmission planning frameworks, and market mechanisms that appropriately value flexibility, firming capacity, and essential system services. Clear and consistent policy signals are necessary to reduce risk and support efficient capital allocation across the sector. In parallel, emerging solar and hybrid technologies present opportunities to enhance performance and system integration but require robust demonstration and validation to achieve commercial readiness. Establishing credible proof-of-concept pathways is essential to de-risk innovation and inform future regulatory and market design.
Drawing on industry experience, including work with Yurringa Energy, this seminar examined the intersection of technical constraints and policy levers shaping solar deployment, and identified priority areas for coordinated action across industry, government, and research.
Speaker
Jessamine Welsh
Sustainability Manager
Spark-North East Link-D&C
Jessamine Welsh is a net zero and ESG strategy leader with over 10 years’ experience delivering sustainability outcomes across major infrastructure projects. She specialises in decarbonisation, carbon benchmarking and integrating ESG into project design and delivery. Jessamine currently leads sustainability strategy on large-scale infrastructure programs, advising government and industry stakeholders on practical pathways to net zero. She has also contributed to the early development of Yurringa Energy, supporting Indigenous-owned renewable energy initiatives.
Moderator
Professor Rebecca Yang
Doreen Thomas Fellow
Department of Infrastructure Engineering
University of Melbourne
Rebecca Yang is a scholar of renewable energy, building and construction. She is also a co-chair of the Australian PV Institute and the Australian lead and expert in the International Energy Agency (IEA) collaborative programs in Building Integrated PV and Solar energy buildings.
View the recording and presentation slides
About MEI's Powering the Future Seminar Series
Bringing together leading researchers and industry experts, MEI’s Powering the Future seminar series will explore the key technological, political and societal developments shaping the energy sector.
Designed for energy industry professionals, government stakeholders, students, and academics, the seminars aim to foster informed discussion across technical, economic and policy dimensions of the energy transition. Each session will be delivered in a hybrid format, allowing participants to attend in person or join online.
View the recordings of previous seminars in the series, and sign up to be notified when the seminars are open for registration.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are those of the presenter and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The Melbourne Energy Institute and The University of Melbourne.
The Melbourne Energy Institute welcomes broad discussion. Please engage respectfully and considerately with all perspectives.