The Hon Michael Gun­ner vis­it­ed Alice Springs last week and spent con­sid­er­able time at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct, includ­ing receiv­ing a detailed brief­ing from Intyal­heme Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Glenn Mar­shall, and Project Offi­cer Tris­tan Simons. 

Intyal­heme is a flag­ship project of Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia (DKA), estab­lished to facil­i­tate the Territory’s tar­get of 50% renew­able ener­gy by 2030.

“The Chief Min­is­ter con­firmed his government’s vision for the NT as a major renew­able ener­gy sup­pli­er to Aus­tralian and over­seas cus­tomers,” said Mr Marshall.

“There is strong sup­port for the Sun­Ca­ble project, which is look­ing to sup­ply 10GW of solar pow­er into Sin­ga­pore and sup­ply green pow­er to NT indus­tries. This would trans­form the NT econ­o­my into a pur­vey­or of clean ener­gy products.”

For local grids, Mr Gun­ner empha­sised the need to ​‘future-proof’ elec­tric­i­ty grids so they remain sta­ble; as more solar pow­er is installed by house­holds, busi­ness­es and large solar farms.

Intyal­heme briefed him on its impor­tant work, bring­ing togeth­er a con­sor­tium of ener­gy indus­try stake­hold­ers to iden­ti­fy and remove bar­ri­ers to fur­ther renew­able ener­gy pen­e­tra­tion in the Alice Springs pow­er sys­tem. Lessons learnt in Alice Springs will be trans­fer­able to larg­er grids, includ­ing the Dar­win-Kather­ine Inter­con­nect­ed Sys­tem, or DKIS.

“The Chief Minister’s vis­it reflects the impor­tance of renew­able ener­gy to the Territory’s future, and the impor­tance of Intyal­heme to make that vision a real­i­ty,” Mr Mar­shall said.

DKA CEO Dr Dan Tyson said Mr Gun­ner was very engaged, and his ques­tions stim­u­lat­ed excel­lent conversations. 

“Intyal­heme is very impor­tant as an inde­pen­dent facil­i­ta­tor, bring­ing togeth­er ener­gy play­ers that are not used to work­ing togeth­er,” Dr Tyson said. 

“They must coop­er­ate to solve com­plex prob­lems fac­ing elec­tric­i­ty grids right now. Intyal­heme is back­ing this task.”