Innovation in the energy sector must be driven by the consumer

By Peter Berry

September’s EEA2024 Conference brought together a range of experts to discuss how we can support and drive innovation to accelerate the sustainable transition of our energy sector. ?

It is a key area of focus for the EEA as we work to support the industry in meeting the needs of the future.

Despite the different backgrounds of those on the panel, the message from each of them was consistent.

It’s all about the consumer and if we truly want to embrace innovation in the transition to net zero, we’d better start integrating social sciences into our thinking. ?

Our audience was asked to consider the simple question: what do our consumers actually want?

For me, this question lies at the heart of our challenges because I don’t believe we know the full extent of the answer.

As an industry we are very good at applying our expert knowledge to thorny engineering problems and building technical solutions.

But when was the last time we asked the user what would make the biggest difference? to them in their busy lives? If we could solve just one problem, what would they want it to be?

The message repeated over the three days of conference was that the energy transition needs to be driven by social sciences alongside the technical, and we must better understand things like how households will function in the future and how they will use energy and technology.

If we fail to do so, then we will fail to address the issues that face us.

Despite the need to broaden our approach, it was also made clear that there is no risk the engineers and technicians amongst us will suddenly find ourselves with nothing to do – far from it. Economies and communities need us more than ever as we electrify and decarbonise.

But we need to push for large-scale, strategic transformation that serves today’s needs without locking us out of future options. And we need a plan. Without it, we will find ourselves constantly reacting to the latest issue, overwhelmed by the tyranny of the urgent.

Our net zero carbon energy future is ripe with new opportunity; we need to plan for it and work collaboratively to make the most of it. ?

The EEA, EECA and its industry partners have this opportunity front of mind as we continue our work on our FlexTalk project. Our aim is to maximise consumer value from actively participating in demand flexibility.

Demand flexibility is the opportunity to put control back in the hands of consumers and to lower their costs. We know this is something our consumers want and it will be transformational for our industry.

Technology is becoming mainstream as consumers take control of their energy use. But we all have work to do to ensure they understand why they should invest in home consumer energy resources and management systems, and how to get maximum value from this investment. ?

A key component of FlexTalk is learning from others and our initial work has identified at least 32 demand flexibility projects underway across the country.

It is fantastic to see the work underway and the level of collaboration that is emerging. We know we are only going to need more of it!

With thanks to our panellists Bill Lilley , Chief Executive at RACE for 2030 ; Nigel Barbour , Electricity Networks Aotearoa Chair and CEO at Orion NZ Ltd ; Cristiano Marantes , CEO at Ara Ake and Terry Paddy , Managing Director at Cortexo Limited .