This North Shore local’s start-up is helping to keep the lights on

⏱️ This story is a five-minute read

Across Australia, extreme weather events — heatwaves, cyclones, bushfires — are increasing in intensity and frequency as a result of climate change. Most know, at least to some degree, the impact these events have on our communities. But what does it mean for how we power our cities, towns, and suburbs?

Daniel Barber from DNA Energy told the Lorikeet that our energy systems need to be smarter and more resilient to cope with a changing climate.

Barber, a Willoughby local, is a co-founder of DNA Energy, an energy/tech start-up that has been developing software connecting a building's electric systems and providing real-time adjustments in order to conserve power and prevent overloads when supply is stressed.

🛠️ How does it work?

While in a domestic setting, an outage might only mean the flipping of a switchboard, in a commercial setting — with much more energy and much higher demand — it can cause fuses to blow out, potentially resulting in long delays for power to be restored. 

DNA Energy looks at large, non-residential buildings — schools, aged-care homes, food retailers — where renewable energy systems have been installed to assist with high power demands.

It installs a “brain” — Barber describes it as a small box, similar to a modem — in the building, allowing for all systems to be coordinated at one point. When the brain senses a potential outage, it can lower energy usage for a period, flattening the spike that could cause a blackout. 

Often, this will occur by temporarily reducing the amount of power going toward high demand systems like air conditioning. 

🪫 Why do outages happen? 

While renewable energy systems such as rooftop solar reduce the price of energy, their dependence on natural phenomena — weather, clouds, sunlight — makes them susceptible to spikes in energy demand throughout the day.

DNA Energy gives the example of clouds drifting in front of the sun on a hot day.

“If 80 percent of [the building’s] power is supplied by solar, the grid's only supplying 20 percent of it, [but if] suddenly, most of the solar goes off, the grid might have to supply another 60 to 70 percent.” 

In a residential home, this might not be much trouble, but in a large-scale commercial operation, it amounts to significant power being rapidly drawn from the grid. 

🌏️ Energy in a changing climate

These events where demand rapidly spikes will only be worsened by climate change, Barber says, driven largely by one of Australia’s biggest energy consumers: air conditioning. In commercial and residential buildings, air conditioning systems consume more energy than anything else. 

Barber said that not only was the company helping make buildings more climate resilient, but saving the operators of those building money on energy bills.

Thumbnail: American Public Power Association