Scenarios for Future Living: putting people at the centre of the energy transition

Understanding the challenge

People are at the heart of the energy transition. As households increasingly adopt Consumer Energy Resources (CER) like solar PV, home batteries, and electric vehicles – alongside new digital technologies – how these innovations will be used in the future remains uncertain.

External factors such as extreme weather events, remote work, and evolving health and safety concerns are reshaping household energy practices in ways that are not yet fully understood. The energy sector urgently needs a dynamic evidence base to track these shifts, ensuring that foresighting, forecasting, scenario planning, policy-making, and product development reflect real-world changes.

Unlocking opportunities

The Monash Digital Energy Futures (DEF) project (2019-2023) pioneered an innovative approach to integrating qualitative research into future energy scenarios. Building on this work, the RACE Scenarios for Future Living project will take this research further by incorporating social trends into energy modelling and forecasting, improving future-focused products and services.

Our approach

To create a more realistic and people-centred understanding of energy futures, the project will:

• Expand and refine future scenarios to better reflect people’s evolving expectations and everyday lives.
• Develop modelling tools that help the energy industry prepare for local and national shifts in energy consumption and behaviour.
• Design speculative products and services that align with or proactively shape these future scenarios.
• Build industry capacity by embedding foresighting methodologies into energy sector planning.

These efforts address a major gap identified in the RACE Opportunity Assessment on Smarter Planning for the Energy Transition report, which highlights the need for deeper insights into customer needs and aspirations to guide energy system development.

Impact and outcomes

By integrating real-world behavioural insights into energy planning, the project aims to:

• Create more realistic energy scenarios that account for changing consumer expectations and behaviours.
• Improve forecasting models and tools to anticipate energy trends more accurately, benefiting distributors and system planners.
• Enhance outcomes for energy consumers, including lower costs, better technology integration, and more accessible energy solutions.
• Drive innovation in energy products and services that respond to future consumer needs and help shape a sustainable energy transition.

Through this work, the RACE Scenarios for Future Living project will help the energy sector move beyond traditional forecasting to embrace a people-centred, forward-thinking approach – ensuring that the energy system of the future meets the evolving needs of all Australians.

Work packages

The Scenarios for Future Living project is structured around seven interconnected Work Packages (WPs), each addressing critical challenges in the evolving energy landscape.

Through these work packages, the project will ensure scalable, impactful, and long-lasting contributions to Australia’s energy transition.