50 Lifestyle Changes Exacerbating Victoria’s Energy Shortage: Report

A Tesla Model Y charges at a EV charge station in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 19, 2021. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Massive shifts in people’s lifestyles will drive up demand for electricity in Victoria, adding pressure to the Australian state’s energy network, new research has shown.

An in-depth study (pdf) of 36 households and 1,325 customers by Monash University researchers revealed 51 lifestyle trends that contributed to a significant rise in energy needs in Victoria, including the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), increased home-based care, and remote work.

This comes as the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has warned that Victoria will likely face electricity shortages as early as 2026.

Lead study author Kari Dahlgren said these trends created challenges and opportunities for the state’s electricity network.

“The 51 emerging digital energy trends are found by looking at nine areas of domestic life, from how people prefer to charge their EVs, to how we prepare and store food, manage new digital and smart technologies in our homes, keep our devices charged, and cope with changed routines while working from home,” he said.

“Consumers value energy for what it enables them to achieve in their everyday lives. Predictions of energy demand will be most accurate if they recognise these values.”

New Lifestyle Trends

Among the changes identified in the research was the increased adoption of EVs.

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While only 3.4 percent of the survey respondents currently owned an EV or hybrid vehicle, 26.7 percent wanted to purchase one in the next five years.

In addition, 77 percent of respondents who had an EV or intended to purchase one in the next five years said they would charge it at home.

The study forecasted that the increased adoption of EVs would result in new peak demand for electricity during the holiday season when there was a high demand for travelling, or before storms when households charged their vehicles in advance to prepare for outages.

The researchers also found that an increase in home-based care would drive up electricity demand for households with pets or family members needing care.

“Households are increasingly installing caring devices such as life support machines that depend on reliable energy supplies,” said Renate Vogt, a general manager at CitiPower and Powercor.

“The energy needs of pets is one of the most surprising findings of this research. The power needed for feeding and entertaining a growing number of pets during the day is not something we would have normally considered in our forecasts.”

Man working on a computer in Melbourne, Australia, on Aug. 3, 2023. (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

Furthermore, the study noted that there would be changes in peak demand trends as more people work from home.

Almost half of the respondents (49.5 percent) reported doing paid work from home at least one day a week, while nearly one in five work from home all week.

“When combining the increased heating and cooling needs of work and study spaces (including in poorly insulated office shed conversions), along with increased computing needs, energy impacts of working from home become significant,” the report said.

Other lifestyle trends contributing to a surge in energy demand for Victorian residents include increased electrification of cooking and heating as well as increasing demand for recreation and entertainment caused by households spending more time at home due to high living cost pressures.

In July, the Victorian Labor government introduced a ban on gas connections in new homes from 2024 in a push to achieve net zero emissions by 2045, effectively forcing new homeowners to use electric appliances.

Since then, thousands of Victorian residents have signed a petition to call on the state government to abolish the ban.

Electricity Shortages on Horizon

In February, the AEMO warned that Victoria could face blackouts from 2026 onward as major gas and coal-fired power plants exited the network.

An AEMO report (pdf) said while the risk of electricity shortages in Victoria between 2023 and June 2026 had reduced, the longer-term risk was now higher than previous forecasts.

“Forecast reliability risks increase further from 2028-29 in Victoria when Yallourn Power Station is expected to retire, and in South Australia from 2030-31 when numerous gas-fired power stations are expected to retire,” the report said.

AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman emphasised the urgent need for investment in renewable power sources, storage, and transmission lines to tackle the forecasted shortfalls in energy supply.

“Reliability gaps begin to emerge against the interim reliability measure from 2025 onwards,” he said.

“These gaps widen until all mainland states in the NEM (national electricity market) are forecast to breach the reliability standard from 2027 onwards.

“Urgent and ongoing investment in renewable energy, long-duration storage, and transmission is needed to reliably meet demand from Australian homes and businesses.”