esv.vic.gov.au
Earlier this year, a diverse project team from across
ESV undertook an ambitious and innovative initiative
to help shape our response to a rapidly changing world.
The five-month project resulted in our
Future Energy Strategy, which provides
us with an adaptive strategic roadmap
to effectively address the energy safety
risks of the future Victorian energy
landscape. Scenario planning is based on a solid
process and rigorous analysis. It allows
us to collectively explore the future
that ESV, the energy sector, and more
broadly Victoria and Australia might
be faced with.
The Future Energy Strategy
uses scenario planning to address
developments in technology, society,
politics and the economy all of which
will continue to impact on ESV’s
longer-term operating environment
in unpredictable ways. The project team looked at the
roles ESV will need to play, and the
capabilities it will need to develop, to
effectively address the energy safety
risks of the future Victorian energy
landscape.
Scenario planning is about creating
structure in uncertainty. Scenarios do
not describe just one future, but rather
a range of plausible futures that
illuminate all the corners of the playing
field in which we may need to operate.
A good set of scenarios forces us to
critically assess our conscious and
unconscious biases to reduce the
risk of being blindsided.
Of course, we cannot predict the exact
nature of the future, but scenarios
are particularly useful for having an
informed dialogue about it. By providing
structure in uncertainty, scenarios help
us understand how different planning
assumptions may play out over time,
and thereby support decision-makers
in building robust, adaptive, long-term
strategies.
The best way to view scenario
planning is as pre-strategy. It provides
decision-makers at ESV with a
powerful framework and toolkit to have
a deep strategic dialogue about the
organisation’s uniqueness and its role
in the world.
The project team also looked at how
the leadership’s vision translates into
adaptive, longer-term strategies that
reflect ESV’s mission, mandate, and
subsequent responsibilities. It provides
ESV with a solid base upon which to
build strategies for the future that will
allow ESV to continue to protect the
safety of all Victorians.
The scenarios unearthed important
challenges and opportunities for ESV.
The challenges and opportunities
were subsequently clustered into eight
strategic themes. In response, the
project team identified and formulated
responses (strategic options) to each of
these challenges and opportunities.
The themes that these strategic
options address are:
» Government, role and organisation
» Internationalisation
» Decentralised energy models
» Hydrogen
» Electric vehicles and fuel cell electric
vehicles
» Qualified practitioners
» Internet of Things, data and automation
» Revenue model.
The project team is now translating
the strategic options into concrete
actions – determining timing, assigning
ownership, and allocating people and
resources to the strategic options that
flowed from the scenarios.
An Early Warning System has
been developed that assists ESV
in determining which scenarios are
becoming more probable as time
progresses, and which ones are less so.
The Future Energy Strategy provides
ESV with a solid base upon which to
build strategies for the future that will
allow ESV to continue to protect the
safety of all Victorians.
Stage 1, the Outcomes Report,
will be launched in January 2020.
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