Australia's faces the challenge of adapting its energy grid to accommodate the CO2- constrained future, a leading regional development academic John Martin says.
Prof Martin, who heads the Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, said the grid must get smarter and adapt to take on locally generated energy.
This will be a focus of the Energy Futures in Regional Australia Conference in Bendigo on November 8-10.
"The way our energy is distributed costs a lot of lost power and addressing those losses and making our energy supply and delivery more efficient from its point of generation to customer billing offers opportunities at every point on the way," Prof Martin said.
"Some of those biggest opportunities will be in regional Australia.
"La Trobe University and the City of Greater Bendigo have invited some of the nation's leading energy developers, policy makers, regulators and investors to talk about these opportunities and the power grid of the future at the Energy Futures conference."
Speakers include Jeff Lillis from gas and electricity supply company Energy Australia which has been working with the University of Sydney to create a smart grid that includes sensors, telecommunications technology and information systems to improve reliability, productivity and to allow more renewable energy sources to be connected to the grid.
The conference will outline new energy technologies, energy opportunities in agriculture, energy efficiency options, community actions, low emissions technologies and distributed or localised energy generation.
Registrations close October 30.
