Doug, Nick and Ryan from Marchment Hill Consulting have decided to take on the 100km Surf Coast Century trail run through the beautiful surrounds of the great ocean road. Doug has drawn the short straw and will take on the challenging middle two legs of this epic event covering a total of 56km, but given…
MHC hosts briefing – Volatile Energy Markets – Water Sector Risk & Opportunity (Friday 16 June, 2017) Australia’s energy markets are seeing unprecedented price increases and price volatility – the summer ahead may well break all records. What appears like risk, is however now equally matched by opportunity: but only for engaged energy market participants….
Recent events in the Australia electricity market, including major power outages in South Australia, the failure of the BassLink interconnector and supply issues at the Alcoa smelter in Victoria, to name a few, have highlighted the challenge of maintaining grid security in an increasingly complex electricity system. 1. Introduction: In the wake of such events,…
This article has been adapted from Marchment Hill Consulting’s Finkel Review submission. The full submission can be found here MHC’s latest research demonstrates that if all the customers with a premium feed-in-tariff (PFiT) subsidy used the residual value of that subsidy to purchase a battery storage system, Australia could have a 960MW virtual power plant,…
Interest in blockchain or distributed ledger technology is building and this technology is already making the transition into the energy industry, where a number of trials are underway around the globe. But what is it and what does it mean for the energy industry? What is distributed ledger technology? Distributed ledger technology is the underlying…
In an article published in QSI April 2015, MHC explored the potential impact of the new metering rules on the market and its implications on key market stakeholders. This article explores the facts on the ground a year on, to see if the developments foreseen by MHC have become a reality. In the 2015 article, MHC…
Decentralised water systems have been used by urban utilities for decades to service remote areas. These systems have typically been ‘fit-for-purpose’ and low complexity, however, remote communities facing global pressures such as climate change, population growth and water scarcity are now placing increased expectations on their water utilities to develop more sophisticated and resilient solutions…
There is a growing consensus in the energy sector that network service providers (NSPs) need to become more customer centric. Customers have undoubtedly imposed this realisation on the industry through their uptake of distributed technologies which are interacting with the established supply infrastructure in ways which present both risks and opportunities for NSPs. But how…
Utilities typically struggle with reviews of their organisation and operating model. Whilst there may be many preconceived ideas on what organisational challenges exist, the prospect of a review raises many unanswered questions and runs the risk of destabilising the utility. An Organisational Diagnostic Framework developed by Marchment Hill Consulting (MHC) provides a strong and meaningful…
Embedded networks are on the rise in Australia, with approximately 500 large-scale and thousands of smaller embedded networks established across the country. It is already common practice for developments such as shopping centres, airports and apartment buildings to be implemented as embedded networks. The next frontier involves large residential housing developments, where entire neighbourhoods are…