Published Jul 17 2020

Getting the Green Light – What Happens Next? podcast exploring renewables

Roger
Dargaville
Associate Professor, Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Monash University
Behrooz bahrani
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering; Director, Grid Innovation Hub
Susan carland
Academic, author and social commentator

We're discussing the topic of renewable energy in this episode of the What Happens Next? podcast and how we can solve some of the challenges of getting sustainable energy into the grid.

Despite the abundance of renewable energy resources in Australia, and huge growth in solar and wind farms, along with hydro, getting it into our cities and households is still a challenge. An old, complex energy grid, our island nation status and the complexity of demand vs supply mean we still have some work to do. But Monash engineers and scientists are confident we can solve these problems. Behrooz Bahrani works on grid integration - how we get all the valuable energy produced by solar, wind and waves into the electrical grid and powering our houses. Roger Dargaville is researching pumped hydro and explains how it can help take us all the way with renewables.

"The amount of renewable energies that we've got in a country like Australia, it's just massive, it is mind blowing. If we could, for example, harness, maybe one per cent of that, that would be more than sufficient for the whole nation."

Behrooz Bahrani, Senior Lecturer, Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering.

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Related:

A breakthrough in green production and storage of hydrogen gas

Perovskites and power: moving to new generation of sustainable solar energy

Listen to more What Happens Next? podcast episodes

 

About the Authors

  • Roger dargaville

    Associate Professor, Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Monash University

    Roger is an expert in energy systems and climate change. He's conducted research in global carbon cycle science, simulating the emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel and exchanges between the atmosphere, land and oceans as well as stratospheric ozone depletion.

  • Behrooz bahrani

    Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering; Director, Grid Innovation Hub

    Behrooz's research interests include control of power electronics systems, applications of power electronics in power and traction systems, and grid integration of renewable energy resources.

  • Susan carland

    Director, Bachelor of Global Studies, and Lecturer, School of Language, Literature, Cultures and Linguistics

    Susan's research and teaching specialties focus on gender, sociology, contemporary Australia, terrorism, and Islam in the modern world. Susan hosted the “Assumptions” series on ABC’s Radio National, and was named one of the 20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices in 2012 by The Age.

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