Energy Unpacked

This week, it’s just us—Adam and Bronte—on the mic, reflecting on the common threads, key insights and ideas that have stuck with us from the Innovation Miniseries.

If you haven’t caught all the miniseries episodes yet, this is a great place to start—a snapshot of the themes and conversations with brilliant innovators from Plico, Kapture, 5B, and Project Ohm.

In this episode, we sit down again with Brian Innes - this time with his Accenture hat on- to unpack how AI is actually being used in the energy transition—and where it may be overhyped.

We explore how machine learning is helping forecast supply and demand, optimise generation, and unlock flexibility in industrial processes to better match renewable energy. Rather than replacing humans, AI is emerging as a decision-support tool—augmenting operators and enabling participation in increasingly complex, fast-moving energy markets.

We also touch on the broader system impacts, from improving grid efficiency to the growing importance of data, as well as key challenges like model drift, oversight, and the rising energy demand of data centres.

In this episode of Energy Unpacked we talk with Nicole, Chief Strategy Officer from 5B about the innovative Maverick solar technology, including its advantages in deployment speed and land use efficiency. We also discuss the company's global expansion strategy and learnings, risk management in large projects, and the importance of customer feedback in product development. A particularly great episode for innovators in the clean technology space.

This week we’re joined by Brian Innes, founder of Plico, an innovator in the VPP space. Brian shares his journey into the energy industry and explains Plico’s unique membership model, designed to address key challenges of owning and operating DER in Australia.

We explore the importance of customer education and engagement, flexible ownership structures, and the critical role of asset management and ongoing support in successful VPPs. The conversation also looks ahead to future trends, including the growing integration of electric vehicles into the energy ecosystem.

In this episode of Energy Unpacked, we sit down with Raj Bagri, founder and CEO of Kapture, an Australian climate tech startup developing compact, modular carbon capture systems that retrofit directly onto diesel generators.

Raj shares her unconventional journey from hospitality to climate tech and how a non-engineering background became an advantage in building a commercially viable carbon capture business. She explains how Kapture’s technology captures up to 95% of CO₂ emissions at the point of source and converts them into a valuable low-carbon byproduct that can be used in other products such as concrete and fertiliser.