The energy trilemma suggests that any modern energy/electricity system needs to meet three goals - sustainability, equity, and security. However, the Australian electricity sector suggests otherwise. Though the trilemma is desirable, its parts are often at odds and have instead been used to justify actions that favour one over the others.

Following roughly three decades of government policy aimed at reducing emissions in the electricity sector, we need to understand how those policies are shaped, the outcomes from implementation, and possible unexpected, negative spillover effects in light of the energy trilemma. Moreover, these policies have transformed the sector into a very different system than it once was. Consequently, we must also understand where the system is heading and how we continue to govern it, at all levels.

Carl's thesis then explores, variously, the Federal level political framing of energy policy in Australia following the South Australian Blackout; distributional outcomes of solar PV proliferation; a policy analysis of the Australian Capital Territory's 'Next Generation Energy Storage' scheme; and finally, the future governance of the low voltage network, given the millions of distributed energy resource (DER) assets, which now sit within distribution networks.

About the Speaker

Carl Tidemann is PhD student at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the ANU. Before beginning university he worked as a field assistant in biodiversity research as well as working for many years in the Federal Department of Health. Upon entering university as a mature age student Carl completed a Bachelor of Science and wrote his Honours thesis under the supervision of then Dr Karen Hussey and Dr Frank Jotzo titled "Addressing carbon leakage in climate policy: a synthesis, and assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of key policy responses."

He is also a research assistant and have worked on projects relating to Preferential Trade Agreements and how they impact the agriculture sector and environmental concerns, the role of the modern nation state in combating climate change, and the governance of the Great Barrier Reef.

When not managing stakeholders on a solar forecasting project or writing about Australian electricity policy, he can be found cutting up dance floors across the land or espousing the virtues of ice cream.