As Australia faces increasing demand on its national electricity network, along with pressure to move towards renewable energy sources, decision and policy makers require access to accurate data in order to assess and verify predictions of energy production, and set policies to proactively plan for Australia’s energy future.
While markets like North America and Europe have had access to high-standard, open data-gathering tools for energy sector decision making for some time, in Australia similar platforms were both expensive and lacked the transparency desired by policy-makers and investors.
To better equip Australia’s energy sector experts with the visibility and insights necessary for transitioning towards a zero-carbon electricity system, ThoughtWorks worked alongside IT Renewables, the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at the University of New South Wales and the Energy Transition Hub at the University of Melbourne, to develop openCEM, Australia's first free, open-source capacity expansion modelling tool.
Launched in September 2019, openCEM received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), as part of its Advancing Renewables Program, and the Governments of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.