On 5 May, Gilbert + Tobin launched their anticipated White Paper addressing key drivers of current energy market disruption and bringing a global perspective toward how Australia might respond.  The White Paper is the product of an international insights tour undertaken by two of the authors, Simon Muys and Geoff Petersen, during January 2017 and draws on their detailed interviews with a range of leading global thinkers from new energy businesses, utilities, policy advocates, regulators and academics.

The White Paper addresses issues such as:

1. The growing ‘politicisation’ of energy policy around the world – and what it means for the NEM and key stakeholders, based on similar global experiences.
    
2. The dismantling of a political consensus in Australia around the market and the likelihood that the current rise of renewables will increase pressure for a move away from the ‘all energy’ market to capacity payments, as has occurred in the US, UK and Europe.
    
3. The importance of Australia overcoming its political aversion to an emissions intensity scheme in order to provide incentives for gas as a transitional fuel.
    
4. What Australia needs to do to keep up with our global peers in providing a regulatory framework that incentivises investment and innovation in the grid and technologies ‘behind the meter’.
    
5. What other jurisdictions are doing to regulate and develop ‘distributed energy resources’ as part of their approach to grid management.
    
6. How cultural issues play out in the current debate – and the longer term implications of market transformation for the investment mindset of regulators, networks, users and funders.