Our project is an “early mover micro project” within SIA’s overarching industry decarbonisation program, where the deliverable is the needs analysis and design for a wave energy microgrid system for Southern Ocean Mariculture, an abalone aquaculture company located in Port Fairy, Victoria.

Throughout this past year, Southern Ocean Mariculture (SOM), AZURA Ocean Technologies (AZURA) and Deloitte Emissions Solutions (DES) have been in early discussion about development of an ocean energy solution to help SOM achieve their decarbonisation goals, reduce their cost of energy and reduce dependency on grid-supplied electricity. These parties have identified the need to analyse SOM’s future energy requirements and develop a novel approach to help them decarbonise through a multi-modal renewable ocean energy microgrid.

Upon learning about AOEG’s proposal to develop an ocean energy/aquaculture program, the leaders of SOM, AZURA and DES enthusiastically offered their participation to co-design a suitable ocean energy microgrid system to meet their needs, under an FRDC funded project. This group of visionary leaders is excited to join the AOEG team in showcasing the work of this proof-of-concept project within the context of the larger SIA Decarbonisation Program, with learnings and application to the broader aquaculture sector.

This project will result in the design for an ocean energy microgrid system that will produce electricity to supplement SOM’s existing grid and/or fossil fuel based energy supply. SOM will help to assess which element of their operation will be used as the basis for initial microgrid design. As a pilot project, this approach enables SOM to evaluate a wide range of issues without high risks and will be considered an incremental step toward building a full-scale off-grid clean energy system for the future.

As an early-mover project within SIA’s decarbonisation program, the following knowledge will be generated for learning and dissemination to the industry.
- Showcase what an ocean energy microgrid system is and its required elements.
- Document the items and factors required to design a suitable microgrid energy system.
- Document the process by which the design is developed.
- Showcase how other offshore or near shore industries could leverage ocean energy microgrids to provide clean electricity for their operations and to help meet decarbonisation targets
- Demonstrate the potential for ocean energy playing a significant role in Australia’s future renewable energy mix

AOEG will collaborate with SIA and the Blue Economy CRC to co-implement industry outreach, communications and other complementary activities within the limits of this first mover energy transition ‘micro-project’.

Australian and New Zealand Rock Lobster is a high value product that has strong recognition in their local and export markets. There is significant capital investment across the combined jurisdictions of the Trans-Tasman lobster fisheries. As with most other wild caught fisheries and seafood sectors Trans-Tasman lobster fisheries face similar challenges in regards to, sustainability, threats to / competition for the resource and resource access, product quality and food safety, implications from aquaculture production and applying and taking advantage of new and emerging technologies. In addition to these common industry issues, lobster fisheries produce a product that is predominantly for live export which adds further challenges such as barriers to trade and trade agreements, complex supply chains and understanding the ‘what and where’ of new market opportunities.

Well organised and educational forums such as Trans-Tasman Rock Lobster Congresses enable a sharing of information and a collaborative approach to addressing challenges and sharing successes. Since first being held in 1999 the biennial Rock Lobster conferences have become the pre-eminent forum for the respective Trans-Tasman lobster industries to consider and address the many challenges across the supply chain. There is never a shortage of key issues and topics to address and bring together in a common theme to deliver a successful Trans-Tasman Industry Congress that has the support of all the key industry bodies and wider stakeholders.

The history of successful Trans-Tasman Industry Congresses, speaks for itself.
Trans-Tasman Congresses have well established support of all the key industry bodies and wider stakeholder interests with all lobster producing jurisdictions having now hosted an event. This history combined with the experience, existing contacts, establishing themes, producing engaging programmes, having informative exhibitions, attracting quality keynote speakers - both local and international, continuing sponsorship from service providers and the ability to attract the general support of industry ensure there is a pool of support and knowledge to deliver successful congresses

Initial Contributions (2023):
• Total combined initial contributions will be to a maximum of $30,000.00.
• Request a cash contribution from the NZRLIC.
• Request a contribution from the Eastern Rock Lobster Industry.
• Contribution from the SRL IPA.
• Contribution from the WRL IPA.

Proposed Governance Arrangements:
• The Managing Entity (ME) i.e. the industry body responsible for administering the congress in a particular year, will be responsible for holding and managing the ‘kitty’ of funds.
• ‘Surplus’ funds will be used to fund the administration, hosting and attendance of any planning meetings conducted in the ‘interim year’, this process will be managed by the ME responsible for hosting the most recent (past) Trans Tasman Congress.
• PI & Co-Investigators will discuss and confirm the amount required for future initial contributions.

In order to support a greater degree of systems thinking in its advisory committees, it is proposed to expose all committee members to the potential approaches to priority setting through a systems lens and benefits of these approaches, and then work with a subset of Research Advisory Committees [and possibly others] to test how bringing tools such as theory of change into their deliberations could assist them to deliver better designed priorities. Working specifically towards theories of change in the committee processes, at appropriate levels of complexity, is expected to provide (i) a context to making approaches of different committee members more explicit, (ii) a basis for better design logic, and (iii) a way of more readily communicating the committee's priorities. The focus of this approach on identifying and working back from ultimate objectives helps frame what may legitimately be narrow priorities in a wider analysis of system drivers such as incoherent policy environments or climate change and thus enable larger agendas to be built around such issues across FRDC. An explicit emphasis on barriers, enablers and assumptions, as well as what is necessary and sufficient to achieve the objectives, also provides a strong basis for evaluating progress and learning. Together these attributes are anticipated to achieve the intent of supporting better FRDC priority setting and increased impact for its stakeholders.