How do we put people at the heart of our energy projects?

A big thankyou to the Clean Energy Council for the opportunity on Tuesday to present at the WA Clean Energy Forum 2024 alongside Ben Lambert, Nicole Walton , Rob Karelse and Craig Ricato .

I presented on a topic close to my heart - deeply integrating stakeholder engagement and approvals into the development-phase of an energy project structure. Designing project structures to do this is not easy, but if you get it right, it is a key success factor.

Why is this the case?

The answer lies within the insights contained within all four presentations, which Dr Peta Ashworth OAM brought together at the end as part of panel discussion.

• The community needs to trust you (Nicole)
• If you want to successfully engage with Traditional Owners for projects on their land you need to approach it as a partnership, underpinned by principles such as those used by Yindjibarndi Energy - 'Community, Culture and Commercial' (Craig)
• There is ongoing uncertainty with legislative requirements, regulator timeframes, and social community acceptance - adopting best practice environment , approvals, and community stakeholder engagement helps mitigate against these (Rob).

As Peta summed it up - 'People are at the heart of the Energy Transition' and there lies a key principle - we need to design our projects with people at the heart.