Did you know that the API has been involved in a project on Electric Vehicle intregration in to Australia's electricity networks for the last 2 years, delivered by the University of Melbourne, Australian Power Institute, Centre for New Energy Technologies and Energy Networks Australia.
Our role has been focused on a) connecting the industry research teams with the research capabilities of our universities and b) sharing the knowledge generated by the project - which has included hosting 6x webinars on the project that are/were freely avaiable for anyone to join (or watch the recording on YouTube).
The recording of the 6th and final webinar is now available and presents a series of recommendations for the integration of EVs considering the current Australian and International trends for EV integration, and a concluding high-level overview and summary of the project.
Recordings of all 6 webinars can be accessed here on the API’s YouTube channel.
Further details on the EV charging project are available here.
Information on the ENA and API’s Australian Strategic Technology Program that initiated this project and others is available here.
This project is also the first for which we've had such an active focus on sharing knowledge through free webinars, and I’m pleased to share some key stats on the Knowledge Sharing activities of this project - and how we achieved 1,500+ hours of free CPD!
As background, the API team decided in 2020 to strengthen our efforts with innovation projects to focus our role on more actively ‘pushing’ the knowledge from the innovation projects we are involved in out into the industry, academic and undergraduate community.
The EV charging project is the first project we have applied this new approach to, with some rewarding results (see graph below):
7x discrete knowledge sharing activities (6x webinars and a live presentation at the API Summer School in May 2022)
2500+ registrations for the knowledge sharing events, growing in momentum and participation over the 2 years
~10 hours of live CPD delivered (90% of this available for free, and as a free recording)
1100+ unique individuals participated in the live CPD, from industry, government, academia and the community (Australian and international)
1500+ person-hours of live CPD delivered for free
2600+ YouTube views* (estimating similar views for webinar 6 as for previous 5)
All this in addition to the knowledge sharing within the project team and industry reference groups, and the sharing of written reports and resources, and other dissemination efforts by the research team and project partners (at conferences etc).
We also learnt some lessons about knowledge sharing (or at least raised some interesting questions); as you can see in the graph of our YouTube video views for the different webinars scheduled over the 2 years of the project, February might be a bad time of year for sharing knowledge through recorded video! Of course, one experience isn't a trend, but we'll be reflecting on why the video views dropped so much in February relative to other months (but our attendance in the live webinar was consistent and showed consistent growth from previous events).
This project has been a wonderful to be part of and we really appreciate the support of the University of Melbourne team in sharing so much knowledge through the project; more broadly I’d like to thank the research team from UMel and the industry partners and to also acknowledge the essential contributions from ENA and C4NET in initiating the project and ensuring it delivered value to all involved.
If you value these webinars and the ASTP innovation projects, keep an eye out for more webinars later in 2022 on other projects in the ENA-API ASTP portfolio, and in the API’s other innovation activities.
I can share that the API does have a similar knowledge-sharing role in another EV-related project in the RACE for 2030 CRC, that should start early in 2023.
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On a final note,
Regards,
David
David Pointing PhD FIEAust CPEng EngExec NER
CEO | The Australian Power Institute
M: 0403 448 488 | E: David.Pointing@API.edu.au | W: www.api.edu.au