We’re pleased to announce the recipients for the UNSW Digital Grid Futures Institute’s 2026 Seed Funding Program.
This year's seed funding supports a wide range of outputs, from open-source tools to knowledge-sharing events and white papers, all aimed at advancing DGFI's mission to enable the electrification of society towards a smart, sustainable future.
Institute Director, Prof John Fletcher says "I am delighted that the DGFI can support such a varied and important set of projects from across the UNSW Faculties. I am looking forward to seeing outcomes and impact of this projects."
Discover more about this year’s projects below, and congratulations again to all recipients!
Digital Grid Futures Institute Seed Funding Recipients 2026
Anna Cain (School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering): Australian energy industry’s capacity to deliver First Nations energy justice in the energy transition
This interdisciplinary project will provide actionable insights into industry capacity development needed to realise First Nations energy justice through the energy transition.
Researchers will conduct in-depth interviews with individuals involved with First Nations engagement working across utility-scale renewable energy project deployment (e.g. development, community engagement, construction and financing) in NSW REZs where energy justice policies are already in place. Interviews will explore how industry understands First Nations justice opportunities and challenges, and how these issues are integrated into project risk management processes.
Xiao Xu (School of Risk & Actuarial Studies): Systemic Risk and Grid Integration of Electrified Robotic Healthcare Networks
This project develops a systems-level framework linking robotic care functionality, energy reliability, and financial risk, addressing DGFI’s focus areas of Risk, Artificial Intelligence, and Grid Management. Applying actuarial risk science, it reframes energy failure as a correlated peril affecting energy-dependent robotic care systems.
Muhammad Haider Ali Khan (School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering): Mapping fiscal exposure and value retention in Australia’s green energy transition
Australia is expanding public support for renewable-energy-linked infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging networks, data centres, and industrial decarbonisation pathways. These interventions are delivered through direct subsidies, tax concessions, and other fiscal support mechanisms. While this support is growing, a key policy question remains unresolved: how to allocate limited renewable energy and public funding between various decarbonisation uses (such as EV networks, data centres, green digital services, and industrial decarbonisation pathways). At present, there is no consistent, quantitative framework to assess which pathways retain greater economic value within Australia, nor how fiscal downside risk is shared between governments and the private sector when supported projects underperform, or outcomes diverge from expectations.
Rex Martin (School of Humanities and Languages): Power and control: The risk of coercive control posed by smart home and energy management technologies
Smart energy technologies encompass a variety of internet-connected devices and appliances that can be remotely monitored, controlled, and automated. Examples include smart lighting, remotely controllable air conditioners, electric vehicle chargers, and apps for monitoring and managing home energy systems. By enabling greater control over when and how households generate, store, or consume energy, the energy sector hopes to address key challenges in the energy transition, including intermittent generation, and network management during peak demand and solar generation periods.
However, there are mounting questions about the unintended consequences of smart energy technologies. These questions include: concerns about such technologies’ capacity to lead to desirable changes in home energy consumption; their potential to entrench the gendered division of domestic labour; and, the perpetuation of visions of the home shaped by narrow, heteronormative masculinity, which in turn excludes more diverse forms of everyday life
Heidi Norman (School of Humanities and Languages): Mapping Country for advancing Aboriginal rights and interests in energy transition. (Valuing Indigenous Sites for Inclusive Opportunities in Net-zero (VISION))
This project will work with two NSW based Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) supporting them to work with UNSW researchers to map their land estate to assess ways they can partication and contribute to energy transition. This will be achieved through the refinement of geo-spatial tools with the two LALCs with the view to wider application across the 120strong LALC network and for Aboriginal land holders nationally. The geo-spatial Mapping Country tool, that we refer to as VISION, stands for Valuing Indigenous Sites for Inclusive Opportunities in Net-zero (VISION) – Land Information System (LIS).
Clay Chu (School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunication) and Vivian Zhou (School of Information systems and Technology Management): A User-Centric And Behavioral-adaptive Digital Intervention for Enhancing Lithium-Ion Battery Safety
This project addresses a key cause of lithium-ion incidents: people may understand safety rules, but in real situations, they often forget, take shortcuts, or misjudge risks at the moment of action. This project plans to use UNSW as a living lab to co-design, test, and implement a practical solution that fits real campus workflows, then scale it to the wider community.
Renyou Xie (School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunication): Empowering Consumers: Privacy-Preserving Edge AI for Smart Meter-Enabled Demand Response
Australia’s energy transition faces a critical "visibility gap." While retailers need granular, appliance-level data to manage solar surges and incentivise flexible usage (e.g., EV charging), current smart meters only report aggregate data. Centralising high-resolution data to the cloud creates a "honey pot" for cyber-attacks and violates consumer privacy. The industry is currently trapped between "dumb" meters that protect privacy but block innovation, and cloud solutions that offer intelligence but erode consumer trust.
Anna Cain (School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering): Understanding user-defined risks to maximise safe micromobility: pilot case study at UNSW Sydney
This seed project was designed following consultation with members of UNSW’s Estate Management (EM) team. The EM team are responsible for realising UNSW’s campus sustainability goals, including uptake of micromobility technologies as part of both campus electrification and sustainable transport). In 2026, EM will be developing UNSW’s Transport Strategy.
Support beyond funding
UNSW Digital Grid Futures Institute offers more than funding. We help connect our Seed Fund recipients to our network of industry and government contacts, facilitate internal and external collaborations where relevant, and help guide researchers and academics looking to translate their projects into real world applications.
The diversity of support we offer helps drive change in the real world and create impact with these projects. Get in touch to learn more!
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