A-Lab

Strong rela­tion­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tive net­works under­pin Intyalheme’s work. Intyal­heme host­ed an ARE­NA A‑Lab in Novem­ber 2018, the first time such an event had been held in region­al Australia. 

Ener­gy experts from all over Aus­tralia attend­ed the Alice Springs A‑Lab. The sig­nif­i­cant effort made by the 50 par­tic­i­pants is val­i­da­tion of the com­pelling oppor­tu­ni­ty Alice Springs pro­vides as an envi­ron­ment for demon­strat­ing emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, with rel­e­vance to the Nation­al Elec­tric­i­ty Market.

A‑Lab events, run by the Aus­tralian Renew­able Ener­gy Agency (ARE­NA) exist to fill a gap in the inno­va­tion land­scape. They bring togeth­er peo­ple with the exper­tise and pas­sion to dri­ve change. 

Dur­ing the two-day work­shop in Alice Springs, 10 dis­crete projects were pitched, aspects of which are now fea­tured in the col­lec­tion of activ­i­ties known as the Alice Springs Future Grid. The expert pan­el of judges includ­ed Min­is­ter for Renew­ables, the Hon­ourable Dale Wake­field, who brand­ed the Alice Springs A‑Lab as ​“nation lead­ing”. Par­tic­i­pants were report­ed to have called the event ​“sen­sa­tion­al” and ​“real­ly well-run”, with many com­ment­ing on the range of skills evident. 

The event coin­cid­ed with the offi­cial launch of the Alice Springs Bat­tery Ener­gy Stor­age Sys­tem (BESS) with par­tic­i­pants tak­ing a tour of the facil­i­ty, based at the Ron Good­in Pow­er Station.

A‑Lab was also attend­ed by Ter­ri­to­ry Gen­er­a­tion chief exec­u­tive Tim Duig­nan, who explained Alice Springs was deal­ing with ener­gy issues around five years ear­li­er than oth­er parts of Aus­tralia, and it was essen­tial that par­ties worked togeth­er on the tran­si­tion to renew­able energy.