Meet the researcher: Dr Gabrielle Kuiper

By  Ruth Dawkins 9 September 2025 8 min read

In 1992, a university student wandered into the Christchurch City Council library for what she thought would be an ordinary community talk. The speaker, Greenpeace New Zealand’s Kirsty Hamilton, flicked through a slideshow – the old kind, with a carousel of film slides – and explained how the climate was changing, even altering the snowmelt on Mount Kilimanjaro.

“It could have sounded like a conspiracy theory,” recalled Dr Gabrielle Kuiper, “but the logic was impeccable. If you keep burning fossil fuels, you keep enhancing the greenhouse effect. And that could be really serious.”

For Dr Kuiper, that evening was a turning point. Already a member of her university’s environment group, she threw herself into climate activism and eventually reshaped her academic path. Three decades later, she’s one of Australia’s leading thinkers on distributed energy resources (DER) – rooftop solar, batteries, smart appliances and electric vehicles – and she’s now into a new role with CSIRO, leading research to support the energy transition in Southeast Asia.

The opportunities of distributed energy resources

When Dr Kuiper talks about DER, her enthusiasm is infectious. 

“It’s the hardest part of the energy transition,” she admitted. “But it’s also where the most change is happening. That’s why it interests me.”

She explains that electricity distribution networks were originally engineered for one-way flows of power from big, centralised generators, down the transmission and then distribution lines, into homes and businesses. 

“But as soon as you start putting generation, storage and flexible demand behind the meter, you create multi-way flows in networks that were never designed for it. Suddenly you need much more visibility, dynamic management and data integration.”

Put simply: the old grid was like a straight road, traffic always flowing in one direction. The new grid is more like a bustling roundabout with power moving in and out from multiple points, all needing to be carefully managed. 

Helping that roundabout function smoothly is at the heart of Dr Kuiper’s work. Her focus is on ensuring DER doesn’t just proliferate but integrates in a way that accelerates economically viable decarbonisation. It’s a challenge she is uniquely prepared for, drawing on more than two decades of experience across the corporate world, government, NGOs and academia.

The breadth of expertise Dr Kuiper has developed through her career is wide, spanning energy policy and regulation, climate change, sustainable transport, sustainable buildings and corporate sustainability. But since 2018, DER has been her specialist focus, sharpened by a Churchill Fellowship that took her across North America and Europe to study the future of clean, smart distribution networks.

Leapfrogging ahead

At CSIRO, Dr Kuiper’s brief is not just domestic. She is leading the organisation’s work on DER in Southeast Asia, a region she describes as “full of potential.”

“CSIRO has assisted DFAT in supporting the Southeast Asian energy sector transition since 2023,” she explained.

“The idea is that Southeast Asia might leapfrog into distributed resources the way Africa leapfrogged into mobile phones. Countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam can learn from Australia’s experience; but it’s important to note that we can learn from them too.”

Australia has the highest uptake of rooftop solar per capita in the world, along with a track record of technological innovation. But Southeast Asia has its own advantages. 

Take transport: “In most Asian cities, more than half the fleet is two- or three-wheelers. There’s incredible potential for electric scooters and electric rickshaws. Frankly, I think there’s an opportunity for Australia to learn from that because we currently don’t make the most of two- and three-wheelers in our towns and cities.”

It’s a two-way street of innovation. And for Dr Kuiper, that kind of knowledge exchange is what makes international work so exciting.

A once-in-a-century shift 

The phrase “energy transition” is often thrown around lightly, but Dr Kuiper insists it’s a momentous shift.

“You’re talking about a once-in-a-century technological change,” she said.

“And then you add on top of that the commercial change, the regulatory change, the market change. Nothing about it is easy. There’s a huge amount of status quo bias in the system.”

One of her favourite borrowed lines – from University of Wollongong’s Ty Christopher – is that while “there’s no energy transition without transmission, the revolution will be in distribution”.

That revolution isn’t just technological. It’s also social and political, and Dr Kuiper has seen first-hand how leadership shapes outcomes. 

“One of the key findings from my Churchill Fellowship was that you can’t substitute for leadership. Unless regulators, policy makers and CEOs of distribution companies want to see change happen, it’s very hard to make it real.”

For Dr Kuiper, that mix of technological, commercial and cultural change – and the ability of the national science agency to provide the evidence to support those changes – is exactly why she has chosen CSIRO as her base at this point in her career.

“People talk about how we’re electrifying homes and businesses. We’re also electrifying transport. But there’s a third dimension too – the convergence of telecommunications, data and digitisation. That opens up huge possibilities for innovation in distribution networks. 

“Data science is now central to any kind of energy research, and CSIRO has incredible expertise in that area, which is not my field. For me, the breadth and depth of knowledge here is really exciting – and my role lets me keep working on DER integration while also supporting Southeast Asia, where there’s enormous potential.”

Energy democratised

So why push for DER integration? Beyond cheaper and faster decarbonisation, Dr Kuiper highlights two other reasons: democratisation and resilience.

“DER can potentially give people more independence and control,” she says. “And with the pace of climate change, it can also build resilience against extreme weather.”

One story Dr Kuiper often shares comes from Newcastle, where the city council transformed contaminated land at their waste treatment facility into a ground-mounted solar farm. When it came time to replace their garbage trucks, they factored the solar farm into the business case and chose electric vehicles. Those trucks now dump waste and recharge on site, running directly on renewable energy.

But the council went further. Recognising that the Hunter region is prone to both flooding and bushfires, they realised the fleet of electric garbage trucks could double as mobile batteries. In the event of a natural disaster, the trucks could be dispatched to provide emergency power to evacuation centres.

“An electric car can power a home for several days,” Dr Kuiper explained.

“An electric truck has an enormous battery. In a flood or bushfire, you can send the trucks out to provide substantial power to community facilities. It’s a brilliant use of technology – and a glimpse of how distributed energy can enhance our resilience in a changing climate.”

A career of connections

Rather appropriately for someone whose focus is now distributed resources, Dr Kuiper’s path into energy research has been anything but linear. After a Bachelor of Science at the University of Canterbury and an honours degree in experimental physics at the Australian National University, she then studied for a Graduate Diploma in science communication – including an internship at CSIRO – before completing a PhD at the newly founded Institute of Sustainable Futures and later a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning  at the University of Sydney.

“I got more transdisciplinary as I went along,” she laughed.

“I’ve done corporate sustainability, worked in the Prime Minister’s office, in the NSW public service, for NGOs, as an independent consultant. Pretty much everything you can do that’s climate related.”

That breadth, she says, is what gives her perspective now.

“If you want to make serious change, it helps to understand how different players think – a listed business, a politician, an engineer in a distribution company. They’re completely different mindsets. Navigating between them is what keeps me entertained.”

It’s also what she brings to her new role at CSIRO.  She’s already looking outward, eager to build networks and collaborations. 

“I’m only one person, and only working three days a week,” she said. “So, I’m really keen to talk to people who want to be involved in this type of work and see what projects we can develop.”

Resilience in work and life

For Dr Kuiper, resilience is not only a theme in her research but also in her personal life. Immersed in the complexities of energy systems by day, she recharges by heading into nature: bushwalking, mountain biking and bikepacking. Her most recent adventure took her along New Zealand’s Old Ghost Road and the Paparoa Track.

“It was spectacular,” she said. “Getting out into nature is not just enjoyable – I think it’s essential for personal resilience.”

It’s a fitting philosophy for someone whose career has been defined by curiosity, conviction and collaboration. From that evening in a Christchurch library to the frontlines of Southeast Asia’s energy future, Dr Kuiper has been driven by the idea that lasting change comes from both leadership and connection.

If her vision proves right, the revolution in distribution is only just beginning.