SwitchedOn Australia

Rather than a ‘hub and spoke model’ where all our power generation is centralised, and the home is just a consumer, we hear how the all-electric home of the future could become 'intelligent.' Raghu Belur, the Chief Product Officer for Enphase, a high tech clean energy company based in California, provides a vision of what it can do.

Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and lead author on transport for the IPCC, Peter Newman, says electric transport not only provides an opportunity to produce healthier, net zero vehicles, it enables us to rethink and build healthier, better cities.

For the last 14 years Mayor R. Rex Parris has led Lancaster's transition to net zero. Lancaster has built solar farms, made it compulsory for new homes to have solar panels, challenged the power of the energy utilities, put solar on all public buildings, etc. Now they're overseeing the development of green hydrogen, and hoping to bypass the control of the electricity companies.

Independent energy consultant and founder of the My Efficient Electric Home Facebook page, Tim Forcey, discusses why people would never consciously choose gas for their new home if they knew how dangerous, hazardous and expensive it is.

Alison Reeve from the Grattan Institute discuses how banning new gas connections now will mean dealing with a bounded problem, not a growing one, and enable householders, policymakers and the gas industry to plan for an all-electric future.

Stephanie Unwin, the CEO of Horizon Power, discusses how 400 residential and business customers had just one year to electrify after the local gas distribution company made a business decision to cut the gas off to the town of Esperance.

One-stop shops like Mac Trade Services are seen as one method to help households navigate the process of electrifying their homes. Merrily Hunter, the company's CEO, discuses the crucial role of trades and best practice.

The ACT is small enough to be a test case for Australian cities wanting to electrify, but big enough to manifest the challenges the rest of the country will face. Shane Rattenbury, the ACT Minister for Energy, shows how the Territory leads Australia's electrification journey.

Kristen McDonald and Francis Vierboom from Electrify 2515, one of the local community groups in Australia working to become fully electric. Their big vision is to swap out all the household machines in their postcode, 2515, that run on fossil fuels – from gas cookers to combustion vehicles – and replace them with electric alternatives run on renewable energy.

The process of fully electrifying his own home was difficult, but it helped, Jon Jutsen, the CEO of Race for 2030, identify the challenges we must overcome to scale up Australia's electrification journey.