The award of the Mulwala Solar Farm project, a 4MW PV solar array in south-west New South Wales, is just one of many pieces of work infrastructure services provider Ventia is undertaking for government and private sector clients across Australia and New Zealand in delivering the energy transition.
The breadth and scale of Ventia’s business positions them well to support their growing client base when it comes to energy security through generation and storage, reduction of energy demand, transmission and
distribution.
General Manager Energy Solutions for the organisation, Lena Parker, says that in addition to a strong pedigree, capability and systems, they have the appetite to engage and are keen to help accelerate the energy transition.
“Right across our business we have people that have decades of experience working with clients to navigate the challenges and opportunities we’re faced with,” Ms Parker says.
“There is an entire ecosystem of solutions, from the way we use energy, to how we generate, store and transmit it. We have an
experienced team that knows how to address our clients’ needs using that ecosystem of solutions.”
An anticipated growth in demand for electricity, due to factors such as electrification of infrastructure and vehicles, data centre growth and population growth, combined with the need to transition the grid from mostly coal-fired generation to renewables, means that we need to plan and build for a future that will look different.
Ms Parker notes that the public sector in particular has a unique opportunity to help accelerate the transition given their scale, access to real estate on which to build generation and storage assets and the impact reducing their own demand would have on the overall grid.
“If you take Defence as one example, they are the largest landholder in Australia with thousands of rooftops. Installation of solar along with battery storage will help them reduce their reliance on the grid and in turn free up that energy for communities,” Ms Parker explains.
“Already underway is work to reducing their consumption through simple initiatives like switching to LED lighting and utilising data to better track efficiencies of use in their property portfolio.”
Critical to all this is the need to undertake all this work at pace.
“We have got to move fast, faster than we have been moving so far,” Ms Parker stresses.
“Protecting and modernising our energy infrastructure is essential, not just for economic stability but for safeguarding national sovereignty in an increasingly volatile world.”