Energy Futures: Energy policy. Where to from here?

Energy policy has played a central role in the removal of another Australian Prime Minister, highlighting our inability to integrate energy and environmental policy. It is already clear that the Coalition Government’s focus will be on energy prices with little, if any, interest in a climate change objective. Yet, the reality is that new renewables can now deliver the cheapest electricity. What policies and market structure do we need in this new world and how will they balance energy prices, reliability and emissions?

Join our panel of experts, including Chloe Munro, Ross Garnaut, Michael Brear and moderator Tony Wood, to throw light on these questions in the next of our Future Energy Series of public policy forums.

Panellists

Professor Chloe Munro is a Professorial Fellow at Monash University, an independent director of NPP Australia Ltd, which was established by the banking industry to build and operate the new faster payments platform, and Chair of the Impact Investment Group’s Solar Income Fund and Solar Assets Fund. Chloe is also Chair of Lucy Guerin Inc, a world-renowned contemporary dance company based in Melbourne, and of the Energy Transition Hub Strategic Advisory Panel.  She was recently named as one of the AFR 100 Women of Influence for 2018

Professor Ross Garnaut is a Professorial Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of numerous in scholarly publications on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific. In 2015 he became the Chairman of ZEN Energy Technologies Pty Ltd. In September 2017, ZEN Energy formed a strategic partnership with global company GFG Alliance and Professor Garnaut became President of SIMEC ZEN Energy.

Professor Michael Brear is the Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne. He guides the Institute’s research on the technical, economic, environmental and social impacts of energy systems. His own research is collaborative with industry and government on the technical, economic and environmental analysis of transport and energy systems; systems with reciprocating engines and gas turbines; combustion of conventional and alternative fuels. Michael is a Fellow of Engineers Australia and the Australian Institute of Energy and he previously established the University’s Master of Energy Systems. Prior to commencing at the University, he worked for ICI Australia (now Orica), then undertook graduate studies at Cambridge University and post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Moderator

Tony Wood has been Energy Program Director at Grattan since 2011 after 14 years working at Origin Energy in senior executive roles. From 2009 to 2014 he was also Program Director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation, advising governments in the Asia-Pacific region on effective deployment of large-scale, low-emission energy technologies. In 2008, he was seconded to provide an industry perspective to the first Garnaut climate change review.