The 2020 Monash EnergyHack
From the 16th until the 19th of October, the Monash Energy Club held its first EnergyHack. Monash students from a wide range of degrees and backgrounds were divided into 7 teams, and together were pitched one problem from each of our sponsors; Woodside Energy, Vestas, and the Monash Energy Institute, as well as a problem pitched by the Monash Energy Club. Problems involved grid stability, wind energy, hydrogen, smart meters, and energy efficiency on Monash campuses.
The teams included undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD students studying a wide array of engineering, business, economics, arts, and science fields. It truly reflected the Energy Club’s goal of promoting and enabling interdisciplinary teamwork, allowing students who are not studying traditionally energy industry related subjects to be able to experience and learn about the industry through hands on experience. We are also very proud to have had a great degree of gender diversity, with a 40:60 female to male ratio at the event. In an industry such as Energy where women are typically underrepresented, it was brilliant to see such a great turn out from our female members.
Using Remo and Youtube livetream, each team had 3 minutes to present their final business plan and novel solutions to a panel of experts and other viewers where, following their presentations, they answered both panellist and audience questions. Each team was mentored by a member of their respective company with Neil Kavanagh (Chief Scientist of Woodside Energy), Shreejan Pandey (General Manager of the Monash Energy Institute), and Michael Perkins (Project Developer at Vestas), assisting the teams in the formation of their solutions.
At 5pm Monday the winning team was announced, Team Rainmakers: Hazim Shahrum, Maxine Yap, Vivian Monje Nunez, Rachel Brindley, and Gaurav Agrawal. Their team tackled the issue of slow voluntary uptake of smart meters in Australian residents that is delaying the switch from flat-rate tariffs to flexible pricing tariffs. A problem that can save households money on their electricity bills. Rainmakers will now have the opportunity to take their solution further with the help of Monash’s Generator, which aims to validate and expand their solution to be a reality.
We spoke to Team Rainmakers after the announcement to hear their thoughts about the event:
Q. What did you find was the best part about the EnergyHack?
A. “The best part, besides being surprisingly winners, was the challenge to learn about something new in such a short time. Also, the idea to meet more people from different fields, love it!” – Vivian
“The mentorship aspect of the EnergyHack was such a unique experience! Being a business student, the energy sector was an uncharted territory. The insights provided by our mentor […] made solving the case study much more directive (& fun!)” – Hazim“The energyhack helped to mix ideas from various fields to develop a business model and encouraged teamwork and leadership skills.” - Gaurav
Q. Did you learn anything new from taking part?
A. “I know so much about tariffs and energy now and it's great! I pay my own bills so it's really cool to be able to actually understand whats going on in my bills now hahaha. I also learnt so much from each of my friends and I’d say we all make a great team.” - Maxine
“Interdisciplinary teamwork was a big one! Having a range of team members from various backgrounds such as STEM, business & arts. The process provided the opportunity for each team member to leverage their expertises from their degrees, which yielded a much better result than expected.” - Hazim
“It was fascinating to research current issues regarding consumer behaviour with energy and smart meters! It can be directly applicable to our own lives and how we review our electricity and gas bills.” - Rachel
Q. What made you choose to take part in the EnergyHack?
A. “I sent the event to my friends on a whim, as I’ve never done a hackathon before, so I thought it would be a really cool experience. Didn't expect to win though! Still really grateful for it!” - Maxine
“It was through Maxine that we found out about the event, then Gaurav joined us in the event. I decided to participate because it was something new for me, and I wanted to know for myself what a hackathon was.” - Vivian
“I was interested in the renewable energy sector prior to the EnergyHack however was not quite sure how my degree in business would fit in. My fellow team member, prompted us to apply to the event and it acted as an incredible way to understand the industry and my potential role within it.” - Rachel
Our aim for this Hackathon was to host a fun, challenging, informative and social event that any Monash student could be a part of. It is great to hear that the teams felt they gained new knowledge and skills surrounding not only the energy industry as a whole but also about their individual everyday energy usage. It is also incredible that each of the team members found great value in the expert mentorship from our sponsors during the planning stages of the event. It was clear that every member from each team put in a lot of hard work, going above and beyond for this challenge and we were extremely impressed with all of the presentations. We can honestly say that each and every one of the teams’ solutions far exceeded what we expected!
Thank you to every member who attended the event! Apart from the usual technical glitches that come with 2020 the event was a smashing success and we look forward to building upon it for 2021. All the teams’ presentations are available on our Youtube Channel and below, as well as the EnergyHack booklet with all the information that was provided to the teams.
Woodside Teams
Team Transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG0WxIsvTzY
Team Pentagon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Ga_aBTG8M
Vestas Teams
Team Flashdrive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIkUOx-tRzw
Team Rocket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcWUVi6Z8Tg
Monash Energy Institute Teams
Team Rainmakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M1Gy1DLxOw
The Indecisives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShx_oPxFs8
Monash Energy Club Team
Team Equilibrium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbHCNT-uGKg
Link to Monash EnergyHack Booklet/Information
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xxy_j-wjzMba4Tb_8mdGQ4bcdN63LQtu/view?usp=drivesdk
Grounded #1 Webinar summary
Sign up for our other webinars at Monashenergy.org/events
The first installment of the Grounded Webinar series hosted by the Monash Energy Club invited Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton; Professorial Fellow and renowned energy expert Chloe Munro; Partner, Energy Transition and Decarbonisation at Deloitte John O’Brien; and Country Head Aus/NZ at Vestas Peter Cowling to discuss the main drivers that will change Australia's energy mix in the next 10-20 years.
All four panelists were optimistic that Australia will witness a rapid decarbonisation in the next decade and that wind and solar energy will be the main driving forces behind this movement. Currently most of the effort to decarbonise Australia has come from the electricity sector but panelists informed the audience that other sectors such as transport and manufacturing are making more conscientious efforts to use renewable energy sources.
Mr Thorton said that if Australia can get on top of their energy sector sooner rather than later the country could set itself up as a prominent resource for renewable energies which could be outsourced to help other countries.
Ms Munro also made a very interesting point that natural gas has missed its opportunity to be the transitional fuel and that the hydrogen export industry could potentially play a vital role in the energy sector. Mr O'Brien admitted he was sceptical about the use of hydrogen but has since come around and also predicts that hydrogen will play a large role in Australia’s energy sector.
While a lot of the progress made in Australia’s energy sector has come about under a relatively unengaged Federal Government, Mr Cowling said that more policy surrounding the energy industry could help assist in a smoother transition to renewable energy sources. He also highlighted that more financial support from the government could help with more complicated issues such as installation of the grid and storage of energy.
The webinar ended with a brief discussion on nuclear energy. Ms Munro kicked off the discussion by saying from an economical perspective nuclear energy is not a viable option which both Mr O'brien and Mr Throton agreed with. Mr Cowling would like to give the contentious energy source a chance to prove itself as a viable option in Australia, however, he also agrees nuclear doesn’t make economic sense in Australia.
Overall, all the panelists were in agreement that Australia’s energy sector was heading in the right direction and predicted these changes will happen sooner than expected.
Grounded #2 Webinar summary
CEO of Jet Charge and Chair of the Electric Vehicle Council Tim Washington, Electric Vehicle Lead at AGL Kristian Handberg, and Senior Manager of Future Mobility at Hyundai Australia Scott Nargar were invited to participate in the second Grounded Webinar and discuss the future of Australia’s car and transport industry.
The first question centred around the hydrogen fuel-cell versus battery-electric vehicle debate and which was most likely to dominate in the next 10 years. All three panelists remained on the fence when answering this question.
“It would be a mistake to think that anyone is locked into anything at this point,” Mr Washington said.
“The split between hydrogen and electric has simply not been determined right now.”
Mr Handberg said he held a “pragmatic view which is to get the right tool for the job”.
He suggested Australia has a viable hydrogen market and from a financial perspective hydrogen was better suited for larger vehicles. Meanwhile electrical batteries would be better suited for smaller vehicles.
However, Mr Handberg admitted the transition from diesel based heavy vehicles to hydrogen ones would be a slow process.
“It is a very expensive infrastructure investment...and people taking that risk right now, from an investment perspective, that is a very hard road so it will go along a pretty predictable path project, models and trials before it gets to that point,” he said.
Meanwhile Mr Nagar had several exciting announcements from Hyundai. The first was that the first 20 hydrogen cell vehicles had arrived in Canberra.
“Unfortunately the cars are sitting in storage at the moment. We are waiting for the Hydrogen station to finish,”Mr Nagar said.
“There is only a couple of weeks of work to do but unfortunately the engineers doing the work are stuck down in Victoria.”
The second was in relation to Hyundai and Uber’s commitment to make flying taxis by 2030 and that Melbourne will be a test city for the futuristic vehicles. Mr Nagar is optimistic that the vehicles will be running by the start of the next decade.
“The money that Hyunadai has invested into this program (Uber flying taxi program) is huge. They’ve got whole teams and divisions working on it,” Mr Nagar said.
“Hyundai is an exciting place to be at the moment.”
In regards to the cost competitiveness of electric vehicles, Mr Washington said they would become accessible to more demographics like students by 2025.
“It’s probably going to happen in Europe first and other countries with strong mandates around electric vehicles,” he said.
“In Australia we expect it to happen a bit later because we are a small market and we tend to have less buying power”.
Mr Washington also provided clarity on what the relationship will be between the electric grid and electric based vehicles.
“At a very basic level the best way to understand it is having more electric vehicles on the road means an increase in demand on the national electricity market,” he said.
“One of the myths is the grid is going to break which is simply not the case. It’s just a question of how efficiently you can allocate the electrons.”
Mr Handberg also reaffirmed there is a “strong latent interest’ in electric vehicles at the moment.
“People have accepted electric vehicles are the future,” he said
“So people are more broadly interested in what is available.”
This webinar covered a lot of ground and provided the audience with an optimistic future for alternative energy sources for light and heavy vehicles.
Grounded 4 - Where is investment urgently needed in the energy transition?
To wrap up the Grounded Webinar series Director of Clean Futures Team at CEFC Bobby Vidakovic alongside Angela MacDonald-Smith from Australian Financial Review and Andrew Harpham from Frontier Economics came together to discuss which sectors needed investment urgently in energy transition.
Mr Vidakovic kicked things off by giving insight on what energy investment looks like today in Australia.
“Looking at the current state of play, one of the key factors that is driving the appetite for investors in renewable projects is the ability to connect, “ he said.
“Distributed solar still has a significant forecast in terms of going forward and we continue to expect to see that.”
In regards to the gas sector Mr Harpham said it has been a difficult decade, but recently there has been more people interested in investing in the energy source.
“There is reported to be a great deal of gas onshore in Victoria that can be produced cheaply,” he said.
“But you never know, economically, with gas.”
Despite the economic uncertainty around gas Mr Harpham said it is still an attractive choice as things like batteries give short term storage.
Ms MacDonald-Smith said there is still a good export demand for gas but due to COVID-19, has made this not an economically viable option at the moment .
“Australia is a high cost destination, high cost location for investments and operations. So if you look at export for LNG it’s pretty much on hold,” she said.
The possibility of the Australian Government subsidising the gas industry was another option Ms MacDonald-Smith suggested may have to happen during the energy transition.
Meanwhile, Mr Vidakovic tabled the idea of Australia developing more Renewable Energy Zones (REZ’s) to help drive investment into grid connectivity.
“There hasn’t really been a large scale REZ deployed in Australia,” he said.
“The market is really testing to see what these look like in terms of how they’re delivered, the commercial framework and the parties that are involved.
“But ultimately the REZ’s have been conceived as an area whereby there are strong levels of renewable resources...to then try and deliver a high scale efficient solution.”
The re-introduction of a carbon tax was brought up for discussion.
Ms MacDonald-Smith said it is very likely that businesses that are large carbon emitters were already planning for this and will most likely find ways to make the consumer pay for it.
“The companies have to take some of the risks of course but it’s the consumer who pays at the end of it.”
Given consumers want more energy efficient products, Mr Harpham said they should be the ones to pay.
“Assuming there’s no market failure resulting in efficient prices why wouldn't we” (the consumer), he said.
The final webinar covered a variety of interesting topics and was a great way to finish the Grounded series.
Grounded 3 - Future Energy Technologies
Director of Energy at Tesla Mark Twidell, Chief scientist at Woodside Energy Neil Kavanagh and Monash Professor and Director of the Woodside - Monash Energy Partnership Paul Webley were asked to look into their crystal balls and predict what the future of energy technology looked like
However, before jumping into the future Mr Twidell kicked things off with a presentation about what’s happening at Tesla now.
“Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy,” Mr Twidell said.
Mr Twidell is primarily focused on battery storage and is working on making a battery that will reduce carbon emissions.
“Tesla has chosen two sectors to focus on, transportation and the energy sector,” Mr Twidell said.
Currently the company is making a lot of progress in developed nations, especially in regards to creating charging networks for vehicles, but the company is also making moves in developing nations as well.
“Another big opportunity we are starting to see is island nations moving from previously being 100% reliant on diesel to very quickly transitioning to...95% renewables,” he said.
Software was another key development Mr Twidell talked about in regards to Tesla’s master plan for renewable energy vehicles and electricity grids.
“The pace of innovation in the software platform and how that leads to economic opportunities and fiscal opportunities is all really really exciting.”
In regards to the future of energy technology Mr Kavanagh was optimistic hydrogen could play a complementary role to other energy sources including renewables. A view which differed from the views of the Grounded panelists from webinar 1.
“What is distinctive about hydrogen is the scale of the energy storage that is possible...which is kinda unlimited, which is not the case for most of the other battery technologies today,” he said.
“But it is also the case that hydrogen is quite costly to store, so I think you will find some economic limit on the volume of storage you can have.”
Mr Webley also agreed hydrogen was complementary to other energy sources, and said we should expect to see different types of batteries on seasonal variations.
However, Mr Webley also said if Australia wants to decarbonise our atmosphere we need to take our wind and solar energy use and multiple it by a factor of 70 and we have to do it quickly.
“We are not looking to electrify, we are looking to decarbonise...it is completely impractical to electrify everything,” he said.
“Electrifying is one way to decarbonise and we should use it when it is sensible…. There absolutely are areas we should be electrifying but there is a much easier way and much cheaper ways to decarbonise our fossil fuels.”
Converting our natural gas to hydrogen and putting it in our pipelines was one of Mr Webley’s suggestions.
The webinar concluded with Mr Kavannagh outlining some problems he would like to see the Woodside project solve.
Mr Kavanagh said he would like to create as many carbon neutral products as possible to help better society.
Interview with Kate Tyler, Shell
Recording of the event with Graeme Bethune and Guillaume Roger Is below
This interview was recorded on the 13th of May, 2020.
This is the first part of our Oil Price Plummet event happening on the 15th of May.
Kate Tyler is the Chief of Staff and Business Advisor to the President of Shell and EVP of Unconventionals. Our discussion focuses on the state of the US energy market, how COVID has impacted Shell and the O&G industry, as well as the oil war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The video file is unedited. Audio only file has slightly better audio quality.
Recap of 2019 and the club in 2020
The Monash Energy Club was launched in September of 2019, and since then it has developed an amazing community of over 120 members and successfully delivered three events that interested Monash students all interested in Australian energy.
Recap of 2019
The Monash Energy Club was launched in September of 2019, and since then it has developed an amazing community of over 120 members and successfully delivered three events that drew interest from Monash students all interested in Australian energy.
Our launch at the Monash Energy Conference introduced the club to Monash staff and students and gave you the chance to ask the team questions and see MEC’s mission and goals. A tour of AGL’s control room showed us how electricity is delivered and purchased across Australia and how renewables are changing the grid. Looking ahead at COP25 heard speakers from CMI, IGCC, and ClimateWorks discuss carbon trading and Australian emissions. Finally, our excursion to Acciona’s Waubra wind farm gave us the chance to see up-close an operating wind farm.
We also welcomed three new committee members who are excited to learn more about the energy industry and help our members showcase their talent. Mobin Rizwan (Treasurer), Aathira Dhananjayan (Assistant Treasurer), and Pradnya Rane (STEM Representative).
This year, the Monash Energy Club’s goal is to form a strong student energy community. Our members will have the opportunity to voice their opinions, to showcase their skills, and to learn from each other and from our industry partners what is needed to support Australia’s energy transition. It is also a goal to collaborate with more Monash clubs, student organisations, and Monash organisations to help build this energy community.
2020 Sponsors
The Monash Energy Club will proudly be sponsored by three energy companies that believe in the club’s values and most importantly our interdisciplinary mission.
The Monash Energy Institute: The heart of energy at Monash University. Through impactful projects and interdisciplinary research, the Monash Energy Institute is working towards a sustainable energy future.
Woodside Petroleum: The pioneer of the LNG industry in Australia with over 3000 employees. Woodside is exploring conventional and new energy technologies and their partnership with Monash University has led to the creation of The Woodside Innovation Centre.
Vestas: The energy industry’s global partner on sustainable energy solutions with over 108GW of wind power installed globally. A powerhouse in the world of wind.
Opportunities for student involvement
Student participation is crucial for the long-term success of the Monash Energy Club and vital to fulfilling the mission that MEC has set out to achieve. In 2020, MEC will have several events and projects available for student participation. We will work to create more opportunities as the year progresses. At the moment we offer:
Editor/Co-producer of the Monash Energy podcast (a high-quality podcast interviewing key figures in the energy industry). Journalism/Media students highly regarded. This will be produced in partnership with MOJO.
Writer and editor for the Monash Energy Club blog (post opinion pieces, news, or your research that will be read by MEC members and industry partners).
Monash Energy Hackathon sub-committee members.
Monash student energy conference sub-committee members.
Please email us at admin@monashenergy.org if you are interested.
2020 Events
Event dates have not been finalised and more events will be added. Keep an eye on the event page and our monthly newsletter for tickets and information.
February: O-Week meet and greet
March: Masterclass with Net-Zero
March: Woodside Masterclass/New energy competition
April: Careers night
May: Vestas Masterclass/Wind energy competition
September: Monash Energy Hackathon
August: Energy camp
October: TBA
November: Monash student energy conference/showcase.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who has supported the Monash Energy Club in 2019. This includes our members, Monash staff, sponsors, and the companies who opened their doors for us.
Have a great 2020!
Sincerely,
Alexander Taylor-Bartels