ENGIE Australian Energy’s innovation strategy

Corinne Ong, Head of Strategy, Business Development & Regulation at ENGIE Australian Energy shares her views:

How do you consider innovation with regards to the conference’s content?

Corinne Ong: The energy transition is progressing at varying speeds in different locations around the globe, so any activity that helps us think and act more creatively and collaboratively has to be a good thing.

It is particularly useful to share knowledge and innovations across the group through central resources such as the openinnovation web site.The week is also helping to inspire new ways of encouraging innovation and stimulate discussions on innovations that are already under way, but may not have been communicated to a wider audience.

What can you tell us about GENIE, the Australian innovation program, the Loy Yang B Business Innovation Group and Innov8, the Hazelwood Innovation program?

Corinne Ong: GENIE is a new innovation program that encourages the submission of ideas from anyone within the company, open collaboration in the development of the idea and continuing education drawn from various industries.It was established in early 2015 in line with the Australian business strategy of creating a culture of cohesion, collaboration and innovation.

The program is enabled by an innovation support team that includes representatives from each part of the Australian business.

The Loy Yang B Business Innovation Group is based at our generation plant at the Loy Yang B power station.

The BIG has been active since 2010 and is focused on identifying business improvement efficiencies as well as how to better utilise resources, such as people, energy, water and fuel.

At Hazelwood, the staff-driven Innov8 program has seen almost 200 ideas proposed in the past four years. While not every one has been implemented, more than $5 million in business savings have been delivered.

The Innov8 group regularly communicates and celebrates great ideas and is always looking at ways to help the business.

GDFSAE’s retail business, Simply Energy is also promoting the generation of ideas through its Simply Energy Innovation Committee, which includes representatives from each of the Simply Energy departments.

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