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Public Safety Assurance in the Energy Transition

May 7, 2025

Public safety assurance in the energy transition requires effective management of sociotechnical risk. Project RP2.3-08, introduces the SOTEC Framework – social, organizational, technical, epistemic and cultural sources of risk to explain what sociotechnical risks are, and how they might best be managed. Past technology transition failures such as Chernobyl, Challenger, Titan, the pink bats insulation scheme and California’s energy policy have lessons for the energy transition that can be drawn out using SOTEC.

You can download the full Public Safety Assurance guide here.

The team held a public webinar on 6 May 2025 to discuss the issues in more detail:

Speakers Prof Jan Hayes, RMIT, Prof Sarah Maslen, University of Canberra

Panel Michael Malavazos, South Australian Government and Craig Clarke, APA Group