Matt Harris

Matt is a member of the energy practice at Frontier Economics, and leads the climate change and renewables work in Australia. He has advised on climate and energy policy design and impacts, renewables and storage, and carbon offset/net zero strategies.

Climate and energy policy

Matt designed an Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS) for the electricity sector (a form of emissions trading) and has advised the AEMC and COAG on a range of emissions reduction policy options, including an EIS (2016) a Clean Energy Target (CET) (2017) and the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) for the Energy Security Board. Matt has advised on state renewable scheme impacts (VREAS, QRET, NSW Roadmap) and the Commonwealth Liddell Taskforce and Eraring closure.

Previous work includes advice to the Malaysian Government to develop a national energy security policy and long-term energy plan; NSW Government on its Energy Reform Strategy; SA Government on an Energy Plan including a 100MW Tesla grid battery, 250MW Virtual Power Plant (VPP) on government-owned public housing, and $100m Home Battery Scheme; Queensland Government on the restructuring of assets to create a “CleanCo” generation portfolio and meeting the 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target.

Renewables, storage and network

Matt has provided electricity price forecasts, valuation, policy and market advice for 4.6GW or $10B worth of renewable and storage projects in Australia, and provided electricity demand forecasts for AEMO and networks including Ausgrid, Essential Energy and CitiPower/Powercor.

Net zero and carbon offset strategies

Matt has advised on energy procurement or net zero/carbon offset strategies for a range of clients such as SA Government, GFG Alliance, Tomago smelter, Amazon, Melbourne Water, Seqwater, South East Water and Frasers Property. Other carbon advice includes:

• road transport: developed an Electric Vehicle (EV) forecast model with cost/benefit and abatement cost estimates and policy recommendations for Austroads to encourage EV uptake to meet net zero 2050
• aviation: developed a Net Zero 2050 roadmap for the ANZ Aviation sector, including a sustainable aviation fuel strategy
• industry: built a model for the Singapore government to project industry sector emissions and account for emissions reduction policies
• waste: comparison of emissions abatement from landfill gas (LFG) versus waste to energy (WtE) combustion, accounting for impacts in a circular economy with increased organic waste diversion
• biodiversity/land use: a scoping study into a national biodiversity services trading platform for the Commonwealth, and advised WA DBCA on carbon farming on government managed lands.

We work as one team across the world

In Asia-Pacific, we do this from offices in Australia and Singapore. We work as a single team with expertise and people brought together as required by the problem we are solving for our clients. Reach out to any of our economists and consultants to find out how we can help you.