Chris Sounness is CEO of Wimmera Southern Mallee Development, spanning six shires and 54,000 people in north-west Victoria. His background is in agricultural extension and regional systems thinking, with a consistent focus on how large-scale change translates into local outcomes.

Through the Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Energy Collaboration — a 2025 CEC Collaboration Award winner — Chris has helped build the governance architecture underpinning the region’s working example of how a Regional Energy Accord might work.  His AgriEnergy framework argues that energy investment, structured well, strengthens rather than displaces agricultural production, and that food security and energy transition are more interdependent than current policy settings acknowledge. He was a provisional board member on the last round of the AgriSolar CRC bid.

His interest at this conference is practical: what models actually make agrivoltaics work for farming businesses and the communities around them.