The role of energy data in enabling climate change mitigation innovation

International guest Speaker - Gavin Starks
CEO and founder of Icebreaker One - United Kingdom

Is open energy data crucial to climate change mitigation efforts?

In this webinar, Gavin Starks provided an introduction to Open Energy: what it is, how it was made and who it is for. He spoke about the Open Energy ecosystem and the relationships and innovation required to establish market-wide standards which can unlock the common data required to help us all address Net Zero. He also covered how opening up the energy sector will impact the wider industrial and financial sectors, enabling the acceleration of low-carbon technologies and de-risking investment in net-zero solutions.

7.30pm, Tuesday 30 November - via Zoom
Presenter: Gavin Stark
Panelists: Michael Jack, Gareth Gretton, Phoebe Taptiklis

Presenter: Gavin Starks helps solve complex, multidisciplinary, collective-action challenges.  He has co-created over a dozen organisations: building multidisciplinary teams fit for a digital age to explore the impact of data on business, society and culture. He founded and now runs IcebreakerOne.org, making data work harder to deliver a Net Zero Future.
His work spans data infrastructure, policy, science, media, communications and innovation, including as co-Chair of the Open Banking Standard; founding-CEO of the Open Data Institute; advisor to the Financial Conduct Authority (Open Finance); advisor to the Global Open Finance Centre of Excellence; Guardian Council member at Yoti (digital identity); Trustee at Blue Ventures (marine conservation); Chairman at Provenance.org (blockchain); Non-exec at CupClub (circular-economy); Chairman at Rinse Media Group. He regularly provides strategic advice to governments, regulators and intergovernmental organisations around the world.  He converted a century-old cargo ship to live aboard and built a cooperative historic harbour on the Thames to put it on.

The Panel: 
Associate Professor Michael Jack is a theoretical physicist with experience in a range of different areas of sustainable energy research. He is director of the Energy Programme at the University of Otago and co-convenor of the Otago Energy Research Center. Current interests include understanding patterns of electricity use and how energy efficiency and new technologies like smart appliances, smart meters, batteries and photovoltaics might influence these patterns, and how flexibility in energy end use might enable greater uptake of variable renewable supply. Through his research he has developed an understanding for the critical role of open data sets in understanding how we best achieve the low carbon transition.

Dr Gareth Gretton is a senior advisor at EECA who focuses on energy efficient buildings and solar power generation. He has used smart electricity meter data on two recent projects: an assessment of commercial-scale solar PV for businesses, and a study on the impact of EECA’s Warmer Kiwi Homes programme on household electricity use.

Phoebe Taptiklis (MPH, Motu Research Fellow). Phoebe’s past research has focussed on housing conditions, and her current work is increasingly involved in energy efficiency and alternative energy solutions.

The panel was moderated by Kate Kolich Manager Evidence Insights and Innovation EECA.