Broadband communication enables sustainable energy services

Australia's electricity supply infrastructure requires investments exceeding $100b over the next 25 years to maintain quality of service to domestic users. Being careful to distinguish energy service needs from electricity delivery, the case is made for distributed energy services which offer improved sustainability outcomes to the traditional monolithic generation model. A key enabling technology for commercial success of the proposed paradigm is a broadband communication infrastructure. Broadband is essential in meeting the cost reduction and performance targets that would allow a distributed energy service model to succeed. Using broadband, a large number of novel business opportunities arise. A case study on solar water heaters is presented showing that a broadband enabled smart controller can realise 20% greenhouse gas savings for a conventional solar water heater and 75% savings for an electrical water heater.