After two years of interruptions and lockdowns due to COVID-19, the 2022 Australian Clean Energy Summit returned as an in-person event in July, where the clean energy industry came together for two days of keynote speakers and exhibits.
Held at ICC Sydney on 19-20 July, the summit was held in-person for the first time since 2019 and featured some of the renewable industry’s biggest experts and forward thinkers who addressed attendees with insights on Australia’s clean energy future.
Highlighting the summit was the attendance of Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, who was the main attraction onstage at the event’s gala dinner in conversation with award-winning Australian political journalist Annabel Crabb.
He spoke about the government’s vision for the transition to renewables and his hopes for Australia’s clean energy future, providing the room of 1100 attendees at the gala dinner with hope for giant leaps forward in the renewables space.
The Greens leader Adam Bandt also delivered a video address, “Powerful thoughts: Big ideas to unlock Australia’s energy potential”, in which he spoke about maximising the unique opportunities to make Australia a clean energy superpower.
Other speakers during the two-day event delivered fascinating expertise on a range of issues facing the renewables sector, including the adoption of large-scale hydrogen; upskilling Australia’s workforce and creating career pathways for the transition to renewable energy; clean energy financing; and redesigning the electricity system to render it future ready.
The gala dinner also served as the ceremony for the 2022 Clean Energy Council Awards – the 11th year they have been held – with chief executive Kane Thornton announcing the following winners:
- Innovation Award: The solar asset management team from RES, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company, won this category for its Digital Twin simulation tool that creates a site-specific, weather-based virtual model of a solar farm to identify underperformance and monitor trends. Pictured in the photo at the top of this page are Catherine Fetherstonhaugh (solar asset management team leader, second from left) and Inez Zheng (grid connections engineer, second from right) receiving the award onstage with Annabel Crabb (left) and Kane Thornton (right).
- Community Engagement Award: Blind Creek Solar Farm, near Bungendore, NSW, took out this award for its pioneering $3.5 million benefit-sharing scheme and agrisolar initiatives designed to coexist with sheep grazing, regenerative agriculture, a soil carbon sequestration project and biodiversity restoration.
- Collaboration Award: EnergyCo, Transgrid and the Australian Energy Market Operator claimed this category for the NSW Renewable Energy Zones Access Standards Development project, in which a new, streamlined grid connection process for the NSW renewable energy zones was established and new Access Standards published.
- Media Award: Marion Ray, AAP’s future economics correspondent, was recognised for her ongoing reporting of the renewables industry and clean energy transition.
- Outstanding Contribution to Industry Award: One of Australia’s solar pioneers, Geoff Stapleton from GSES, was recognised for his longstanding leadership and passion in developing standards and training capability for the Australian solar industry for more than three decades. He developed Australia’s first solar standards and official training course, and was one of the nation’s first accredited installers.
In presenting the awards, Thornton praised the recipients for their dedication to progressing Australia’s renewables industry.
“There has never been a more critical time for the clean energy industry to step up and deliver, and this year’s award winners have all demonstrated a willingness to think outside the box so more communities can access and understand the benefits of clean, low-cost renewable energy,” he said.