News

Listen to the podcast from our Energy Futures seminar on the central issue of energy and climate policy in Australia - the National Energy Guarantee.

University of Melbourne Chancellery Research is offering support for up to four Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to attend a Universitas21 ECR Workshop at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on the theme of ‘Sustainable Futures’.

IMNIS have expanded the scope of their mineral resources mentor program to include graduate researchers in Energy. Eighteen places are available to PhD students in their second year or early in their third year.

Listen to the podcast from our Energy Futures seminar that explored exactly what a sustainable electricity network would look like.

The Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation Senator the Hon Zed Seselja has recently announced that the Federal Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program will be co-funding Future Fuels CRC with $26.25m.

Read all about the Energy Hack 2017 winners.

Corporate Responsibility as Embedded Agency

Listen to the podcast from the 2017 Distinguished Lecture given by Professor Sally Benson on the role of energy systems analysis in making good energy choices.

Listen to the podcast from our event launching the feasibility study report into using seawater in a pumped hydro energy storage facility in Cultana, South Australia.

The Australian Carbon Capture and Storage Conference 2017 delivered the most recent developments in CCS research to Australian and international researchers.

Australia's mercury emissions from coal-powered power stations, metal smelting and vehicle emissions are twice the global average, report finds.

Geothermal or geoexchange energy uses underground temperatures to make heating and cooling more efficient, and researchers are piloting this technology in one of Australia’s biggest infrastructure initiatives, the Metro Tunnel Project.

Listen to the audio from our in conversation book event with Mark Butler, Ross Garnaut and Sara Bice.

To understand the major barrier to making our cities more sustainable and environmentally friendly places, just stand in the centre of almost any Australian city and look up. The chances are you will be in the shadow of a tall building totally reliant on air-conditioning and made from energy-intensive materials like steel.

Listen to the podcast from Professor Ross Garnaut's public lecture based on the recently released independent review of the national electricity market.

Read our summary and listen to the event audio from our most recent Energy Futures Seminar featuring Australia's Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel.

Event podcast from Dr David Mooney's seminar on the outlook on the U.S. energy transition.

In a world of growing energy needs, and a global imperative to halt carbon emissions, a tiny ‘quasiparticle’ called an exciton could provide the answer to our problems.

Poor air quality can have major health consequences, and with Australia having highest allowable sulphur in petrol in the OECD, the CAUL Hub's and MEI’s proposal for legislative change is justified.

Listen to the podcast from our debate on how the gas market crisis is affecting the Australian energy sector, and some of the proposed potential solutions.

The recent troubles in  our electricity market are well documented.  As described in my earlier pieces in this series,  two elements have focused the attention of our political masters and industry groups.

Missed our event on the role of large-scale battery storage? Listen to the audio here.

Victoria’s Hazelwood power station will be shut down this week after nearly 50 years of supplying electricity.  

If you couldn't make it to our Energy Futures Seminar: The Future of Clean Coal? you can listen to a podcast from the event.

Australia’s NEM is witnessing an unprecedented rise in spot, or wholesale, prices as market conditions tighten in response to a range of factors.

Who could forget the energy “crises” that affected electricity supply across south-eastern Australia last year.  

The federal government has announced a A$2 billion plan to expand the iconic Snowy Hydro scheme. It will carry out a feasibility study into the idea of adding “pumped hydro” storage capacity, which it says could power up to 500,000 homes.

With high gas prices partly to blame for the electricity blackouts that hit South Australia this month, and gas-fired generators caught short in New South Wales two days later, it is hardly surprising to hear calls for Australia to expand production.

EnergyAustralia, MEI and Arup Group awarded ARENA grant for pumped-hydro storage plant assessment in South Australia.

Check out the video from Energy Hack 16!

Hear the audio from our December Energy Futures Seminar.

The Australian government is reviewing our electricity market to make sure it can provide secure and reliable power in a rapidly changing world. Faced with the rise of renewable energy and limits on carbon pollution, The Conversation has asked experts what kind of future awaits the grid.

The Australian government is reviewing our electricity market to make sure it can provide secure and reliable power in a rapidly changing world. Faced with the rise of renewable energy and limits on carbon pollution, The Conversation has asked experts what kind of future awaits the grid.

Hear the audio from our most recent Energy Futures Seminar on the potential pathways to decarbonisation.

Listen to Mariangela Guidolin, PhD, on how renewable energies will need to interact with existing systems.

The ongoing uncertainty over the future of the Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley has raised the prospect that the ageing generator will be shut down in the near future.

Australia’s energy ministers are meeting today in an emergency gathering following South Australia’s recent state-wide blackout.

Three pioneering PhD scholarships on offer from Melbourne Energy Institute.

On Thursday 1st September, I commenced as Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute. This is indeed an honour.

Lead by Andrew Blakers (ANU) and Richard Cornish (UNSW) 190 members of Australia’s energy research community have written to Parliament regarding the Governments plan to strip most of ARENA’s funding.

How is the South Australian electricity market changing, and what is the impact on wholesale prices? MEI Research Fellow Dylan McConnell explains.

How does science speak to policy?

As an urban rail activist, academic and commentator, including a spell on Infrastructure Australia, I can say from the start I was delighted that we have a consortium prepared to have a go at high-speed rail using value capture.

Discover the interdisciplinary energy research projects MEI will be helping to develop in 2016.

… and why we can use it to power a renewable future for all of us

MEI's Deputy Director Dr Roger Dargaville was interviewed on ABC News 24 on 1 July 2016 about the infamous hole in the ozone layer.

Listen to the event podcast from our Energy Futures Seminar on 27 June 2016.

The strangeness of last Sunday…

Attention to national issues in the federal election campaign was momentarily diverted overseas this week, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull became embroiled in the Brexit debate, pending the UK’s vote on continued European Union membership next Thursday.

In case you had forgotten, electricity prices were a really big deal in the last federal election campaign in 2013, albeit often disguised under the rubric of axe the tax.

With little by way of fanfare,  Basslink resumed operation this week after almost 6 months.

The Victorian Labor government has announced an “ambitious and achievable”  Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET). This target will commit the state to generating 25% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020, and 40% by 2025.

With Australia’s historically cheap energy, old housing stock in many areas, mild climate and frequent emphasis on low building costs, many homes are little more than “glorified tents” when it comes to thermal performance.

Channel 9's Today Extras interview with Tim Forcey, Energy Advisor at the Melbourne Energy Institute.

In what must surely be a first for the Conversation, I am writing this post from the village of Sakteng in remote eastern Bhutan.

Call out to University of Melbourne researchers and collaborators

How will new energy technologies produce a competitive advantage?

The involvement of geotechnical and geomechanical engineers in problems comprising unprecedented Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical and Chemical (THMC) conditions is every time more frequent, particularly in applications related to geo-environmental and geo-energy problems.

Listen to the Podcast of our latest Energy Futures Seminar from 19 May 2016.

'New South Wales is the worst Australian state at driving renewable energy, and South Australia and the ACT lead the pack, a report produced by the Climate Council has found.'

The Melbourne School of Design currently has an exciting opportunity for three Master of Philosophy (MPhil) candidates to join an innovative multidisciplinary project working towards a local low-carbon future for Melbourne.

It has only been a week since the closure of South Australia’s last coal-fired generator, but already a new pattern is emerging that points the way to a new energy system, away from “baseload” built around coal, gas or nuclear, to a new system built around wind and solar and other renewables.

South Australia’s last coal-fired power station closed on Monday this week, leaving the state with only gas and wind power generators.

At 9.40 am local time on Monday May 9th the turbines at Alinta’s 520 megawatt Northern Power Station at Port Augusta disconnected from the grid for the last time.

On all sides of an argument, advocates push ridiculous extremes.

As evidenced at the December 2015 COP 21 climate change conference in Paris, the world - and Australia - will increasingly be using renewable energy. Some jurisdictions, ranging from Costa Rica to South Australia, will settle for no less than 100 per cent elimination of fossil-fuelled electricity generation.

This paper analyses normative change in electricity supply in order to understand the challenges associated with the introduction of a non-negotiable environmental norm, a change necessary to ensure long-term environmental sustainability of the supply system.

There was a collective sigh of relief throughout New South Wales and Queensland in response to energy giant AGL’s official statement that, “It has taken a strategic decision that exploration and production of natural gas assets will no longer be a core business for the company due to the volatility of commodity prices and long development lead times.”

Every summer, the number of Australian homes equipped with air conditioners goes up and up. Recent statistics show that 74% of Australian homes – 6.6 million so far – have some form of air conditioning. This stands to reason because our summers are becoming hotter and hotter while we increasingly demand constant comfort.

Storage is in the energy news now, in more places than can be listed.To pick a few, here are recent news items from Europe, Tesla, and Queensland.

Energy Advisor at the Melbourne Energy Institute, Tim Forcey, appeared on Beyond Zero Radio to discuss pumped hydro energy storage. This technology exists in Australia at three locations built several decades ago, however other countries are leading a renaissance of pumped hydro energy storage. The deployment of pumped hydro exceeds that of any other energy storage in use today by a ratio of at least twenty to one. This is because pumped hydro remains the cheapest form of large scale energy storage.Tim's discussion follows a research project jointly partnered by the The Melbourne Energy Institute and Arup. The research explains that pumped hydro can benefit electricity consumers by dampening price spikes during peak demand periods. However, the research demonstrates that this would not benefit profit-maximising electricity producers who currently profit from this market failure.

Pumped hydroelectricity energy storage (PHES) is by far the most significant form of large-­scale energy storage in use around the world today with approximately 130 GW of generation capacity installed. PHES facility construction is resurging globally as evolving electricity supply systems place greater value on stored energy. Australia has approximately 1.5 GW of PHES capacity; however, no large‐scale facilities have been installed in the last 30 years. This paper examines opportunities for the construction of additional large-­scale PHES facilities in Australia.

In late September, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released a report investigating how wind can better be integrated into the power grid. AEMO reports that as more wind turbines are deployed over the next seven years, constraints on the way our electricity grid works – including bottlenecks in the system – mean there may be limits on how much wind-generated electricity we can use.