Communities around Australia are investigating new ideas like grid-tied microgrids to make better use of locally-generated energy, improve resilience to outages in the face of climate change-related disasters, increase the penetration of renewable energy into the grid, make money, and other things. These often focus on generation and storage technologies, but recent ANU research on resilient microgrids has highlighted the importance of reducing energy demand when assessing the feasibility of microgrids.

Demand can be reduced overall through energy efficiency, energy sufficiency, or shifting demand throughout the day. These are in practice very different strategies requiring different approaches through policy, community engagement, or other means. 

I invite interested students to contact me about their honours project for 2023 (semester or year-long projects). You will be able to define your own project with my support, but I particularly invite students interested in qualitative or mixed methods study. The work could be positioned within existing orthodoxies, or could explore other perspectives such as degrowth.

Please contact me from 9 Janurary 2023 for an initial chat if interested!

About me

I'm a research fellow with the social science team in the Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program (BSGIP). My current research is looking at the governance, operations and business models for grid-tied microgrids as part of our SµRF project. I'm an engineer by training but have pursued an interest in the social factors in technical systems. My PhD was about the experience of natural ventilation as opposed to air conditioning. I've worked in the private sector (wind farm development, sustainable buildings, fast EV charging) as well as in policy (energy efficiency). This means I'm an all-rounder.