Project Partners

Alice Springs Future Grid is a whole of sys­tems project con­sid­er­ing how Alice Springs can achieve 50 per cent renew­able ener­gy by 2030. The project recog­nis­es that in the future the roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of stake­hold­ers in the elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem will be dif­fer­ent from those in place today. Future Grid is seek­ing to map out what these poten­tial roles, respon­si­bil­i­ties and tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties will be. 

The Intyal­heme Cen­tre for Future Ener­gy (pro­nounced In-char-lum) is lead­ing the deliv­ery of the Alice Springs Future Grid project, on behalf of DKA.

Intyal­heme is a flag­ship project of Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia. It was estab­lished with $5m seed fund­ing from the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Gov­ern­ment, and a man­date to coor­di­nate rel­e­vant agen­cies towards the NT’s 50% renew­able ener­gy tar­get by 2030. Intyal­heme has robust gov­er­nance frame­works, oper­at­ing as a con­sor­tium led by Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA), Pow­er and Water Cor­po­ra­tion (PWC), Charles Dar­win Uni­ver­si­ty (CDU), Ekisti­ca, and the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Gov­ern­ment (NTG). Intyal­heme has a for­mal Knowl­edge Shar­ing MoU with ARE­NA to dis­sem­i­nate renew­able ener­gy knowl­edge across the NT.

Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA) is a not-for-prof­it statu­to­ry cor­po­ra­tion of the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, estab­lished in 2003 to encour­age learn­ing, socioe­co­nom­ic devel­op­ment, research, and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty in Cen­tral Aus­tralia. DKA is com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to build a stronger and more con­nect­ed desert and remote Aus­tralia. DKA is the land­lord of the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct, and its pri­ma­ry oper­a­tions include ful­fill­ing that respon­si­bil­i­ty, as well as fos­ter­ing its two flag­ship projects; Codes 4 Life and the Intyal­heme Cen­tre for Future Ener­gy. The fund­ing from the Aus­tralian Government’s Region­al and Remote Com­mu­ni­ties Reli­a­bil­i­ty Fund – Micro­grids pro­gram was aus­piced through DKA. 

The Desert Knowl­edge Research Insti­tute (DKRI) was the for­mal lead for the ARE­NA fund­ing application.

DKRI is incor­po­rat­ed as a com­pa­ny lim­it­ed by guar­an­tee and its sole mem­ber is Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA). DKRI’s pur­pose is to under­take research of val­ue to desert Australia.

DKRI is rep­re­sent­ed on the pro­jec­t’s Steer­ing Com­mit­tee by the Chair­per­son, who is also a mem­ber of DKRI’s Research Committee.

Ekisti­ca is a pro­fes­sion­al advi­so­ry and tech­ni­cal con­sul­tan­cy firm based in Cen­tral Aus­tralia with clients that include state and nation­al gov­ern­ments, inter­gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies, pow­er util­i­ties, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice organ­i­sa­tions, large com­mer­cial firms and pri­vate invest­ment firms.

Ekistica’s team includes elec­tri­cal, renew­able, envi­ron­men­tal, civ­il, struc­tur­al and mechan­i­cal engi­neers, engage­ment spe­cial­ists, data ana­lysts and IT sys­tems and finan­cial experts who work on major projects right across Aus­tralia and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Many of its most promi­nent projects are in the renew­able ener­gy sec­tor, although Ekisti­ca applies its under­ly­ing prin­ci­ples and philoso­phies to a broad range of tech­nol­o­gy and infra­struc­ture projects. 

Ekisti­ca has been deliv­er­ing ener­gy solu­tions to remote com­mu­ni­ties for decades, find­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to the com­plex chal­lenges posed in remote Out­back Aus­tralia. One such project was Bush­light (2002 – 2013). Ekisti­ca has recent­ly worked with Intyal­heme (project deliv­ery lead for Future Grid) to pro­duce a doc­u­ment called the Off-Grid Guide, which lever­ages the knowl­edge gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the Bush­light project, to pro­mote best prac­tice in the pro­du­cre­ment and deploy­ment of off-grid solar sys­tems in remote Australia. 

Ekistica’s par­ent com­pa­ny is the Abo­rig­i­­nal-con­trolled Cen­tre for Appro­pri­ate Tech­nol­o­gy Ltd.

CSIRO is the knowl­edge shar­ing part­ner for the Future Grid project.

The Com­mon­wealth Sci­en­tif­ic and Indus­tri­al Research Organ­i­sa­tion (CSIRO) is Australia’s nation­al sci­ence research agency and has exten­sive engage­ment into the nation­al ener­gy indus­try. It part­ners with local and glob­al com­pa­nies to deliv­er ener­gy solu­tions for a sus­tain­able future, aim­ing to improve the afford­abil­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and grid inte­gra­tion of renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing solar, wind and bio­fu­els. Its exper­tise also extends into the trans­port sec­tor with sus­tain­able fuels and ener­gy stor­age solu­tions, as well as using new tech­nolo­gies to improve the elec­tric­i­ty grid. CSIRO pro­vides gov­ern­ment and indus­try with the tools, data and mod­el­ling capa­bil­i­ty to inform pol­i­cy assess­ment and invest­ment deci­sion making.

Pow­er and Water Cor­po­ra­tion is one of three Gov­ern­ment Owned Cor­po­ra­tions deliv­er­ing ener­gy ser­vices in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry. Pow­er and Water owns and man­ages pow­er net­works on the Dar­win-Kather­ine Inter­con­nect­ed Sys­tem (DKIS) grid and the Alice Springs, Ten­nant Creek and Yulara stand-alone grids. Pow­er and Water also pro­vides pow­er to 73 remote Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties across the NT. Pow­er and Water oper­ates as Sys­tem Con­troller and Net­work Oper­a­tor in all NT grids. It recent­ly deliv­ered the Solar Ener­gy Trans­for­ma­tion Pro­gram (SET­uP) enabling 25 remote com­mu­ni­ties to access renew­able ener­gy, in a project co-fund­ed by ARENA.

Ter­ri­to­ry Gen­er­a­tion (TGen) is the main gen­er­a­tion provider on all reg­u­lat­ed grids in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry. TGen was estab­lished as part of the NT Government’s struc­tur­al reforms of the Pow­er and Water Cor­po­ra­tion, announced in Decem­ber 2013. The new Gov­ern­ment Owned Cor­po­ra­tion was sep­a­rat­ed from Pow­er and Water in July 2014. It oper­ates nine pow­er sta­tions across the Ter­ri­to­ry, includ­ing two in Alice Springs: Ron Good­in and Owen Springs. TGen has recent­ly installed a 5MW Bat­tery Ener­gy Stor­age Sys­tem in Alice Springs.

Jacana Ener­gy is the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry’s gov­ern­ment-owned ener­gy retail­er. It is the lead for sub-project 4 — Tar­iff Reform. Jacana has been heav­i­ly involved in the devel­op­ment of the Solar Con­nect VPP, and is man­ag­ing cus­tomer engage­ment for the trial. 

The Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (ALEC) is Cen­tral Aus­trali­a’s peak envi­ron­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion with strong com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and around 350 finan­cial mem­bers. ALEC has been active­ly involved in urban sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives since its incep­tion in 1980. ALEC deliv­ered the Alice Water Smart pro­gram in con­junc­tion with Pow­er Water Cor­po­ra­tion in 2013 – 2016 and was an impor­tant con­sor­tium mem­ber of the Alice Solar City pro­gram. It was upon this basis that ALEC was cho­sen to lead the com­mu­ni­ty-fac­ing ele­ments of Future Grid. ALEC is the lead for sub-project 3: Com­mu­ni­ty Solutions