Highlights Of The Program

2 days business program:

Learn from real-world case studies by industry leaders.

SHOWCASING INNOVATION:

Discover the latest technology and techniques from across the industry.

leaders talk:

Hear from top-level experts about how to stay ahead in a fast-changing industry.

MULTIPLE STREAMS:

A business program that is multi-disciplinary, giving you a broad view of the industry.

SMART TECHNOLOGIES:

Explore the latest smart and AI-driven solutions, and see how they can be used in your business.

roundtable discussion:

Join talks with industry peers. Share ideas, make connections, and find new partners.

Program 2026

DAY 1 :

WEDNESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER, 2026

08:00 - 08:50

REGISTRATION AND MORNING REFRESHMENTS

08:50 - 09:00

OPENING ADDRESS

09:00 - 09:25

UNLOCKING AUSTRALIA'S DISTRIBUTED ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Emily Gadaleta

Tesla

Arguing that DER deployment is essentially solved, Australia must now focus on asset orchestration
Explaining how real-time signals enable retailers to deliver flexibility as simple bill savings
Demonstrating that Tesla's VPP assets respond to real-world signals while preserving consumer agency

09:25 - 09:30

Q&A SESSION ON MAKING DISTRIBUTED ENERGY RESOURCES WORK SMARTER ACROSS AUSTRALIA

09:30 - 09:55

COMMUNITY POWER NETWORKS – LEARNINGS SO FAR

Steve Lewis

Ausgrid

Outlining Ausgrid’s low-voltage design to extend DER benefits beyond customers with assets
Quantifying the pilot scale across 32,000 customers, 130 MWh of storage, and 66 MW of new solar
Sharing early lessons on partners’ tender design, complexity, and orchestration at a world-first scale
Revealing how community batteries can cut peaks, lower costs, and improve equity across suburbs

09:55 - 10:00

Q&A SESSION ON SCALING COMMUNITY BATTERIES FOR FAIRER GRID OUTCOMES

10:00 - 10:25

AUSTRALIA'S CLEAN ENERGY AND AI OUTLOOK

Tushna Mehta

BloombergNEF

Forecasting how AI data centre expansion and cloud growth will reshape electricity demand in Australia
Projecting Australia's clean energy capacity doubling and the implications for grid reliability and markets
Decoding the drivers and barriers shaping BloombergNEF's solar, wind, battery, and behind-the-meter forecasts

10:25 - 10:30

Q&A SESSION ON AUSTRALIA'S CLEAN ENERGY AND AI GRID OUTLOOK

10:30 - 11:00

MORNING COFFEE BREAK IN THE EXHIBIT AREA

11:00 - 11:30

PANEL DISCUSSION ON SMART GRIDS AND THEIR ROLE IN SHAPING AUSTRALIA'S ENERGY FUTURE

Harnessing Australia's world-leading rooftop solar, battery, and EV uptake through smarter grid design and ownership
Validating grid-forming inverter performance across black-start, frequency support, and fault ride-through in Australian deployments

Dylan Frangos | HoustonKemp

Megan Jackson | Tesla

11:30 - 11:55

REGULATORY FRAGMENTATION AS A DRIVER OF GRID TRANSFORMATION

Geoff Petersen

Gilbert + Tobin

Examining the shift from national consistency to state-led regulation through REZ policy
Weighing faster delivery, stronger coordination, and community alignment against complexity
Drawing on recent examples to assess whether flexible regulation aids transition infrastructure

11:55 - 12:00

Q&A SESSION ON WHETHER REGULATORY FRAGMENTATION HELPS OR HINDERS THE GRID

12:00 - 12:25

INTEGRATING DER WITH THE NEM: NEW MARKET OPPORTUNITIES MEET REGULATORY EVOLUTION

Peter Limbers

Maddocks

Exploring market-leading DER projects across new energy service providers, energy gentailers, regulated networks, and property developers
Examining innovative contracting, financing, and business models used in some of these DER projects
Navigating key regulatory developments that enable new DER opportunities

12:25 - 12:30

Q&A SESSION ON UNLOCKING DER WHERE MARKET INNOVATION MEETS ENERGY REGULATION

12:30 - 13:30

NETWORKING LUNCH & VISITING THE SMART GRIDS EXHIBITION

13:30 - 14:00

PANEL DISCUSSION ON ORCHESTRATING AUSTRALIA'S DISTRIBUTED ENERGY REVOLUTION ACROSS NETWORKS AND COMMUNITIES

Scaling Australia's CER deployment from fragmented pilots to a nationally consistent framework across DNSPs, AEMO, and communities
Decoding what communities want from distributed energy and how networks can build meaningful engagement at scale
Resolving competing priorities between customers with DER assets and network orchestration needs as deployment scales across Australia
Reframing EVs from a grid management burden to a flexible distributed asset within community energy networks

Greg Hannan | Hannergrid Consulting

David Anstee | Withywindle Consulting

John Gorman | Ecosuite

Riley McAuliffe | JET Charge

14:00 - 14:25

DECARBONISATION THROUGH MICROGRIDS AND DER IN EDGE-OF-GRID NETWORKS

Jey Shivakumar

Cossill & Webley Consulting Engineers

Examining edge-of-grid network constraints, capacity limits, and reliability challenges today
Evaluating current decarbonisation options and how they perform against real network constraints
Detailing WA utility-scale microgrids at Peel Business Park, Eglinton Village, and Ocean Reef case studies
Demonstrating residential DER services that cover capacity shortfalls and strengthen local supply

14:25 - 14:30

Q&A SESSION ON PRACTICAL DECARBONISATION FOR EDGE-OF-GRID NETWORKS

14:30 - 14:55

UNLOCKING TRANSMISSION CAPACITY WITH AI, DIGITAL TWINS, AND REAL-TIME CONTROL

Ignacio Fernández

Splight

Harnessing AI and digital twins to increase grid capacity without physical infrastructure upgrades
Unlocking additional transmission capacity through advanced thermal criteria and real-time remedial actions
Accelerating renewable integration and large load connection in Australia through autonomous grid control

14:55 - 15:00

Q&A SESSION ON UNLOCKING GRID CAPACITY WITH AI AND REAL-TIME CONTROL

15:00 - 15:20

AFTERNOON COFFEE BREAK IN THE EXHIBIT AREA

15:20 - 15:50

PANEL DISCUSSION ON SMART GRIDS

15:50 - 16:15

POLICY OPTIONS FOR ENABLING ETES AND THE DECARBONISATION OF PROCESS HEAT

Nathan Steggel

Aratherm

Benchmarking eTES levelised cost of heat against gas across NEM regions for FY24/25 and FY25/26
Stress-testing how tariffs, gas prices, and electricity dynamics shift eTES cost competitiveness
Simulating ARENA grants, production credits, and price support effects on the eTES project financing

16:15 - 16:20

Q&A SESSION ON ETES ECONOMICS AND GRID POLICY OPTIONS

16:20 - 16:45

DIGITAL TWINS FOR ENERGY NETWORK RELIABILITY AND RESILIENCE

Ee Hui Lim

Monash University

Combining asset data, system configuration, and simulation to assess true network reliability
Applying lessons from battery-backed DC systems to reveal reserve, redundancy, and risks
Identifying weak points early to improve DER integration, maintenance, and service continuity

16:45 - 16:50

Q&A SESSION ON USING DIGITAL TWINS TO STRENGTHEN NETWORK RESILIENCE

16:50 - 17:20

RESERVED PRESENTATION

17:20 - 18:20

NETWORKING DRINKS RECEPTION

DAY 2 :

THURSDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER, 2026

08:00 - 08:30

MORNING REFRESHMENTS

08:30 - 08:40

OPENING ADDRESS

08:40 - 09:10

PANEL DISCUSSION ON GRID-SCALE STORAGE, BESS, AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES DRIVING THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Navigating pre-development capital challenges, emerging M&A trends, and shifting investor priorities in the BESS market
Harnessing hybrid storage architectures to address sub-second grid instability as renewable penetration increases beyond battery-only capabilities
Balancing bankability and innovation trade-offs in commissioning new energy technologies for the Australian grid
Identifying the talent and capability gaps posing the greatest risk to Australia's accelerating BESS and storage project pipeline over the next five years

Costa Casiou | SPINFRA

Wiehann De Klerk | EnyGy

Dan Su | Jinko ESS

Stephen Overty | PR Projects

09:10 - 09:35

PROACTIVE ASSET HEALTH MANAGEMENT: ALM, FAULT AVOIDANCE, AND MINIMISING DOWNTIME

Ranil Sharma

Camlin Energy

Diagnosing why ageing assets, climate volatility, and renewables compound grid decision and asset risks
Recalibrating asset decisions from spend-incurred metrics towards defensible, outcomes-led grid management
Rethinking grid resilience by shifting from reactive fix-on-fail to proactive predict-and-prevent operations

09:35 - 09:40

Q&A SESSION ON SHIFTING GRID ASSET MANAGEMENT FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE

09:40 - 10:05

DESIGNING SOCIAL VALUE INTO SMART GRID INVESTMENTS: FROM ASSETS TO COMMUNITY

Laura Stewart

PATHMAKER

Reframing smart grid investment to generate social value alongside reliability and efficiency
Embedding social outcomes into planning, governance, delivery, and procurement decisions
Enabling collaboration with communities, councils, and First Nations partners on outcomes
Aligning technical, financial, and social objectives to deliver durable community benefits

10:05 - 10:10

Q&A SESSION ON DELIVERING COMMUNITY VALUE THROUGH SMART GRID INVESTMENTS

10:10 - 10:30

MORNING COFFEE BREAK IN THE EXHIBIT AREA

10:30 - 11:00

PANEL DISCUSSION ON COMMUNITY MICROGRIDS AND VIRTUAL POWER PLANTS DRIVING FLEXIBILITY AND ENERGY SECURITY

Diagnosing the regulatory, financing, and trust barriers preventing community energy from scaling beyond pilot programmes
Navigating the trade-offs between energy flexibility and security across community microgrid and virtual power plant models
Securing reliable DER operations by managing diverse device brands, topologies, and bandwidth constraints across distributed sites
Distilling real-world lessons from community microgrid and VPP operations on balancing reliability, affordability, and decarbonisation

Luke Blincoe | SUPA

Gary White | GJW Enterprises

John Gorman | Ecosuite

Stephen Rodan | Beyond Coral

11:00 - 11:25

GETTING THE MARKET AND REGULATORY SETTING RIGHT FOR FLEXIBLE DEMAND

Aylin Cunsolo

Ashurst

Defining flexible demand and quantifying value from load shifting, onsite generation, and storage
Examining pricing, tariffs, and market reforms needed to unlock demand-side participation
Exploring commercial models, including aggregators, VPPs, and flexibility-as-a-service

11:25 - 11:30

Q&A SESSION ON UNLOCKING FLEXIBLE DEMAND THROUGH MARKET REFORM

11:30 - 12:00

RESERVED PRESENTATION

12:00 - 12:30

RESERVED PRESENTATION

12:30 - 13:30

NETWORKING LUNCH AND VISITING THE SMART GRIDS EXHIBITION

13:30 - 14:00

PANEL DISCUSSION ON DEFENDING THE DIGITAL GRID THROUGH NEXT-GEN CYBERSECURITY AND RESILIENCE STRATEGIES

14:00 - 14:25

HIGH-EFFICIENCY SOLAR DRIVING AUSTRALIA'S NEXT WAVE OF UTILITY HYBRID INVESTMENT

Andrew Gilhooly

TCL SunPower Global

Harnessing high-efficiency solar advances to scale giga-class utility hybrid investment in Australia
Validating the certifications and performance standards that determine solar panel longevity at scale
Grounding investment decisions in real-life giga-scale utility hybrid solar deployment case studies

14:25 - 14:30

Q&A SESSION ON HIGH-EFFICIENCY SOLAR AND AUSTRALIA'S GIGA-SCALE ENERGY FUTURE

14:30 - 14:55

POWERING AUSTRALIA'S GRID REVENUE STACKING, POLICY SIGNALS, AND TRANSFORMATIONS

Matt Baumgurtel

Hamilton Locke

Examining how revenue stacking improves battery returns through arbitrage and ancillary services
Assessing policy signals shaping storage investment and long-term project bankability in Australia
Exploring how DER aggregation and AI support a more flexible and responsive electricity grid
Strengthening cybersecurity while balancing sustainability and regulatory demands in grid digitisation

14:55 - 15:00

Q&A SESSION ON POLICY SIGNALS SHAPING AUSTRALIA'S ENERGY FUTURE

15:00 - 15:15

FEEDBACK AND RAFFLE DRAW

15:15 - 15:30

CLOSING REMARKS

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