Columnists: Jonathan Jutsen, energetics

Published on: 18 Mar 2016

Energy in the knowledge economy

At the recent Australian Summer Study on Energy Productivity we heard two wonderful examples of how to create jobs, economic growth and an exciting future from embracing energy productivity and clean energy.  One was California, which is quite a well known case now.  But perhaps the achievements of Simon Corbell and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government are not as well recognised.

We heard from David Hochschild, a Commissioner of the California Energy Commission, that there are half a million energy productivity and clean energy jobs in CA now, and growing at 17% p.a.  This now significantly exceeds the total number of people working in all the traditional energy utilities in the State.  The approach of CA has been to aggressively pursue a low carbon and energy productive economy, initially for economic reasons to defer investment in expensive and unneeded supply infrastructure, but now to prepare it for a low emission world, and to be master of the new economy.

California has long has aggressive energy efficiency and productivity targets.  Its investments over 40 years, which significantly exceed $1B/year in recent years, have allowed it to achieve an energy use per capita half that of the rest of the USA.

By investing to reduce customer energy consumption, it has been able to introduce more expensive renewable energy supply without increasing energy bills.  California has high energy prices compared to other States, but amongst the lowest energy bills in USA.

By learning through research and development, experimentation and early adoption to build expertise and capacity, it leverages this to build a robust economy for the decades ahead and export its expertise and products.  They are building a fast rail between San Francisco and LA, 100% renewable supplied, and it is no coincidence that Tesla established its manufacturing plant in CA.  The CA economy is growing rapidly.

Here in Australia, Simon Corbell deserves much more recognition for the Australian Capital Territory government's achievements in this area.  Simon and his team have also embraced the energy knowledge economy. ACT has used energy efficiency/productivity investments to reduce energy consumption of Canberra residents, to allow it to introduce 90% renewable energy by 2020 without increasing energy bills.  This is admirable in itself, but like CA, Simon ensured that it exploited its early moves into a clean energy economy to experiment and learn, gain investment into the Australian National University and other research facilities in the State (from offsets from the renewable procurement process) and built expertise in ACT, which is already exported nationally and internationally.  It is investing in light rail which will be 100% renewable supplied.  Their vision is showing the way to our other States.

When you consider the shocking waste of resources and productive capacity that occurred in Australia’s centralised electricity supply systems in the past decade, at such a high cost to all consumers, surely it is time for all our States (and outside Australia too!) to now follow Simon's lead and redirect investment to energy productivity, renewables and the new economy.

The views expressed in this column are those of the columnist and do not necessarily reflect the views of eceee or any of its members.

Other columns by Jonathan Jutsen