The EEA’s Engineering & Technical Lead Advisor, Dr Stuart Johnston recently attended the Australian Clean Energy Summit (ACES 2025). Read Stuart’s summary of key highlights and relevance for Aotearoa New Zealand.
The recent Australian Clean Energy Summit (ACES 2025), hosted by the Clean Energy Council in Sydney, brought together over 1,600 delegates and more than 160 speakers to explore the future of energy systems across Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific. With topics spanning investment frameworks, electrification, DER integration, system resilience, cybersecurity, and hydrogen development, the summit served as a valuable platform to reflect on shared challenges and opportunities in our region.
New Zealand’s electricity sector is grappling with many of the same issues as our Australian counterparts, rising electrification, increasing DER volumes, affordability pressures, and the need for joined-up infrastructure and planning reform. Attending ACES 2025 provided a timely chance to benchmark our progress, understand where Australia is pushing ahead, and identify opportunities to strengthen our own approach.
Investment signals and market reform: bridging the tenor gap
Early sessions focused on the investment environment and market architecture needed to enable Australia’s 82% renewables target by 2030. One key issue: the tenor gap, a misalignment between long-term infrastructure needs and short-term market price signals. Australia is exploring a contract warehousing mechanism to underwrite 10–20 year investments without undermining market competitiveness. Ross Garnaut and others advocated for stronger carbon pricing and better incentives for long-lived, grid-supportive assets.
While Aotearoa New Zealand’s regulatory settings provide some investment certainty (for example, contracts for difference – CfDs – for large renewables), there’s a similar need to ensure our market design supports investment in transmission upgrades, long-duration storage, and demand flexibility platforms.
Grid stability and operational complexity in a distributed energy resources world
The transition to inverter-based and distributed energy resources has introduced operational complexity in the Australian grid, with AEMO reporting a staggering rise in market interventions from 6 in 2016 to over 1,800 in 2024.
Solutions on the table included:
- Accelerated rollout of grid-forming inverters
- Investment in real-time monitoring and control platforms
- Strategic deployment of long-duration energy storage
- Enhancing DER visibility and coordination for system protection
Our sector is proactively engaging with these issues, especially through Transpower’s visibility programme, FlexTalk, and the EEA’s Streamlining Connections Programme. However, the Australian experience is a reminder of how quickly grid stability issues can escalate as DER volumes grow.
Cybersecurity as a pillar of resilience
David Owen (Deloitte) delivered a compelling message: as the energy system digitises and decentralises, cybersecurity becomes core infrastructure.
Australia is implementing:
- Mandatory risk management obligations under critical infrastructure legislation
- Sector-wide uplift programs aligned with IEC 62443 and NIST frameworks
- Supply chain risk mitigation and OT/IT integration strategies
We have good awareness across major players but lack a unified cybersecurity framework tailored to the electricity sector, especially at the distribution and DER level. The Australian model shows how policy, standards, and capability uplift can work in tandem.
Data centres, hydrogen, and emerging load growth
Several sessions explored new demand profiles and their system impacts, notably the forecast boom in AI/data centres, with an expected 12–15 TWh additional consumption in the NEM by 2030. Hydrogen development was also front-of-mind, with a focus on cross-sector integration and export readiness.
While our near-term demand growth is more modest, we must prepare for step-changes — particularly in Southland (aluminium, data) and in hydrogen for transport and industrial heat. Integrating these projections into transmission and distribution planning is critical.
DER optimisation, aggregators, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI)
Australia is making real strides in distributed energy coordination. Sessions led by Nate Chang (Tesla) and Dean Spaccavento (Reposit) outlined how virtual power plants (VPPs) and aggregators are unlocking the full value of consumer energy resources (CERs).
Key enablers include:
- AI for predictive control and optimisation
- Consumer participation tools and seamless market access
- Clear regulatory recognition of aggregator roles
We’re in the early stages, with promising FlexTalk pilots and exploratory work by EA and EECA. But formalising the aggregator role and enabling scalable VPPs will be essential to deliver consumer benefits and grid support at scale.
Planning reform and community engagement
Across the summit, it was clear that the energy transition must be socially licensed to succeed. Many Australian projects are facing resistance due to fragmented planning systems, poor communication, and lack of local benefit-sharing.
Solutions discussed included:
- Early and ongoing community engagement
- Transparent planning and permitting processes
- Shared benefits from infrastructure like batteries, wind, or transmission lines
With RMA reform and broader energy planning underway, we have an opportunity to build strong, integrated planning processes that also secure social licence. Including communities as partners, not just stakeholders, will be key.
Electric Avenue: Electrification as a system challenge
The summit concluded with a dynamic panel — Electric Avenue — featuring Chris Miller (SEC Victoria), Dr Brendan French (ECA), Grace Tam (CEFC), and Lena Parker (Ventia). Their core message: electrification is not just about replacing appliances, it’s about building a smart, flexible, whole-of-system solution.
Key reflections for New Zealand
- Accelerate smart appliance uptake and enable demand flexibility
- Coordinate EV charging infrastructure with distribution network capacity and land use planning
- Invest in real-time data, visibility, and flexibility platforms, not just poles and wires
- Empower consumers through clear pricing signals, data access, and participation pathways
- Plan across sectors — housing, energy, transport — with joined-up leadership
- Ensure regulation and policy keep pace with technology and consumer expectations
What we’re doing well — and where we can go further
| Focus area | NZ strengths | Australia lessons to consider |
| DER enablement | National pilots (e.g. FlexTalk), early visibility work | Scale VPPs and formalise aggregator frameworks |
| Cybersecurity | Sector awareness and risk management by major players | Develop unified frameworks aligned to global standards |
| Investment signals | CfDs and innovation funding supporting renewables | Explore long-tenor support tools (e.g. contract warehousing) |
| Community engagement | Strong consultation culture and RMA reforms | Embed benefit-sharing models and integrated regional planning |
| Load growth and hydrogen | Active hydrogen pilots and long-term demand planning by Transpower | Prepare for rapid industrial and AI-driven loads, integrate hydrogen into policy |
| Grid planning and stability | Visibility pilots, demand flexibility roadmaps | Invest in grid-forming inverter capability and real-time operational tools |
Final thought
ACES 2025 was a powerful reminder that the clean energy transition is a system-level challenge. Australia is moving quickly to address scale, complexity, and consumer trust – and while the contexts differ, many of the insights are deeply relevant for New Zealand.
From cyber risk and grid control to community trust and flexibility services, the summit reinforced that success depends on coordinated action, across regulators, network planners, technology providers, and communities.
New Zealand is already taking steps in the right direction. But to truly unlock the potential of electrification, DER, and decarbonisation, we must bring these efforts together, with joined-up thinking, inclusive design, and long-term commitment.
