Archive for March, 2010
The recently announced Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill aims to turn around Australia’s historically poor record on commercial building energy efficiency (see IEA report — Implementing Energy Efficiency — are our members on track).
The Bill provides for the establishment of a new national scheme for the disclosure of commercial office building energy efficiency when office space of 2,000 m2 or more is offered for sale, lease or sub-lease. According to the Property Council of Australia, there are around 2170 commercial buildings of greater than 2,000 m2 in Australia, totaling over 19 million m2 in all.
The information to be disclosed will be in the form of a building energy efficiency certificate (BEEC). A BEEC will have three components:
- A National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) Energy star rating star rating for the office building;
- Brief guidance material that provides owners and tenants with information on energy efficiency investment opportunities (These opportunities are measured in potential star improvements and given a difficulty rating of high, medium or low that is dependent on cost and operational impact);
- Information about the energy efficiency of the office lighting;
Failure to comply with the disclosure requirements would carry a maximum penalty of $100,000. Under section 19 of the bill, anyone who misuses building energy efficiency information that they have obtained or generated would face a maximum of two years in jail.
The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the bill says the new requirements will have a net benefit if as few as 3.9% of property buyers or tenants use the information in their property decisions over the next 10 years.
Much work to do
Data published by NSW DECC on the uptake of NABERS assessments suggests building owners have a lot of work to do in preparation for the new Bill. Around 75% of total assessments conducted since 1999 have been for large properties greater than 5,000 m2 in size. Even in the over 5,000 m2 category, it is estimated that up to 70 per cent of properties have not had at least one NABERS Energy assessment in the period from 1999 to 2007 and for properties between 2,000 m2 and 5,000 m2 in size, only 13% have had a NABERS assessment.
While you will need an accredited NABERS Assessor to help prepare the Building Energy Efficiency Certificate, you can start with a self assessment and our building monitoring solution can help, and can bring this information to life for building occupants and prospective tenants.
We will be introducing our new technology for sustainability, Greensense View, at the Energising WA Conference this week.
About Greensense View
Greensense View is a real-time energy and sustainability dashboard. Greensense View can monitor electricity consumption, on-site green power generation, local weather, indoor and outdoor temperature, all in real-time. Greensense View presents the information back to stakeholders in an engaging way that encourages energy conservation.
The sensors communicate wirelessly with a radio mesh network based on Zigbee PRO and can support hundreds of sensors spanning a building, a campus, or a neighborhood. We provide network gateways that log sensor data and send it to our hosted software service located in our secure Perth data center.
While Greensense View can help improve your environmental performance, there are economic benefits too. Electricity prices are set to soar in Western Australia and there is good research that shows 5 to 15% energy-efficiency improvements just from giving people direct feedback on their energy use.
Starter packs
We are offering three starter packs as part of our launch of Greensense View. The prices below exclude GST and installation and are valid until the 30th of June 2010. The price also includes the first years annual subscription fee. All three starter kits can be expanded with additional sensors. Depending on the area your network needs to span, you may need range extenders or an additional network gateway.
Basic Kit — $5,000
The basic kit includes a single-phase electricity sensor, a weather data feed, and a network gateway.
Enhanced Kit — $8,000
The enhanced kit can monitor two separate three-phase electrical circuits. It includes two three-phase electricity sensors, a rugged outdoor temperature sensor, a weather data feed and a network gateway.
Campus Kit — $10,000
The campus kit can monitor three separate three-phase electrical circuits — for example, allowing you to compare performance between three buildings on a campus or three floors within a commercial building. It includes three three-phase electricity sensors, a rugged outdoor temperature sensor, a weather data feed and a network gateway.
More information
You can read more on the site about our innovative real-time energy dashboard or contact us for more information. And if you’re attending the Energising WA, visit us at stand number 1.
On March 22–24, the WA Sustainable Energy Association will be hosting the Energising WA conference and Greensense is proud to be involved on a number of levels. Not only are we a Silver Sponsor of the conference, but we are also contributing by conducting a sustainability audit aimed at measuring the impact of the event to ensure the sustainability of future events — a theme at the core of WASEA’s business.
We’ll also be exhibiting at the conference — at stand number 1 — so why not come and say hello? We’ll be showcasing our dashboard product, Greensense View, which aims to increase awareness of realtime energy use, drive behavioural change and reduce consumption.
But wait, there’s still more! Greensense is also excited to announce that our Local Government Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Abatement Platform is a finalist in the category of Community and Regional Initiative at the Awards for Excellence and Innovation. The winner will be announced on Wednesday March 24, so stay tuned to hear how we fair. This platform was developed in collaboration with the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA). You can read more about it here.
Greensense are proud to announce that we are again partnering with the Drug Aware Pro surf comp in Margaret River.
Last year we joined the event to complete a sustainability audit and we made recommendations for improving the sustainability of future events.
This year, not only are we completing another audit, but we’re also helping the comp to implement a number of initiatives and recommendations from last year to reduce the event’s environmental impact.
The first step this year was to develop a Sustainability Policy to guide the decision making process. From there, the Drug Aware Pro have implemented improved waste and recycling initiatives, are offsetting competitors travel, are encouraging carpooling, and are working with suppliers and sponsors to green the supply chain.
This is such a great example of what Sustainable Event Management is all about: making a commitment, recognising the impact, making changes and improving year on year.
If you’re going to be at Surfers Point for the weekend, look out for the Greensense folk and come and say Hi!
Peter Sinclair has produced a great series of very accessible YouTube videos on climate change. This video on climate change science is particularly worth sharing given the attention climate change skepticism has enjoyed recently.
We’re happy to have our new website design up and running. The old design was fine for when Peter, Derek and I first started the business two years ago. But since then, we’ve tripled in size and can count organisations like Horizon Power, Woodside, Sunset Events, BHP Billiton Iron Ore, a bunch of WA local governments through our climate change consulting preferred supplier agreement with WALGA and great Western Australian events like the Drug Aware Pro among our customers. It was time for a new site.
As well as a changing the design, we’ve changed our site to explain our services in a new way. We’ve divided up what we do into three main areas: Climate Change Consulting, Sustainable Event Management, and Technology for Sustainability. Expect to find more information within these areas over the next couple of months as we provide more details and case studies for our services.
The area that will get the most attention is Technology for Sustainability as we provide more information on a new product we are launching soon. Stay tuned. You’ll already find some information in this area on car pooling with liftshare. Liftshare provide the worlds best car pooling service and we are partnering with them to respond to a request for tender for a major new car pooling service in Australia.
We’d like to thank the clever folk at Cleverstarfish Web Design and Caboodle Copywriting for their help with the new site. If you have any feedback, let me know.
