HILT CRC annual conference

By Max van Someren | 15 October 2026

HILT CRC Annual Conference

Next Thursday and Friday Dani van Elk and I will be in Adelaide for the HILT CRC annual conference. It's at the National Wine Centre, which I consider a well-chosen venue.

In honour of the venue, we ran South Australia's wine regions through Levelised to see which would grow the best wind and solar farms. The sun is fairly evenly spread, but the wind isn't: the same turbine produces almost twice as much energy in the Clare Valley as in Coonawarra.

Winemakers call this 'terroir': how the local environment shapes the grapes.

For industrial decarbonisation, terroir takes many forms. As well as the renewable resource, there's the workforce, supportive policy and a stable regulatory environment. So how can a project pick the location with the right terroir for it?

It's the question behind this year's conference theme: de-risking decarbonisation. Each of those factors has its own experts, many of whom will be in the room next week. Ours is the energy supply. What it does hour by hour decides whether the plant runs when it needs to, and at what cost. So before businesses commit capital, we model how the plant would run against real weather and prices.

As a HILT CRC Affiliate Partner, we count this conference as a highlight of the year: a couple of days with people working out how to make industrial decarbonisation pay.

If you're going too, Dani and I would be glad to meet. Send me a message and we'll find a time (a glass of something local optional).