Posts Tagged ‘energy efficiency’
Last week we started the Perth Solar City Bring It Down Challenge, where seven schools are being challenged to bring down their energy use over seven weeks.
Round one of the competition is over and we’re incredibly pleased that every school has managed to reduce their energy use. Mundaring Christian College and Hillside Christian College are neck and neck at the moment, with Mundaring just pipping Hillside in Round 1 with an awesome 50% reduction in their energy use.
Ballajura Community College is the largest school in the competition, with a huge student population and a baseline energy use of over 24,000kWh per week, which is equivalent to about 220 average homes. While they only scored 10 points this round, I think the 6% reduction, equivalent to over 1,500kWh, is fantastic. To put 1,500kWh in perspective, its equivalent to the energy that Ballajura might get if they installed a 55kW PV array.
If you’d like to check out the complete results from round one, you can download the Western Power Bring It Down Challenge Round 1 Results (PDF).
Every school dashboard can be viewed from the Bring It Down page on the Perth Solar City web site, or you can click on the schools below to see how they are going:
Upper Swan Primary School
Ballajura Community College
Woodbridge Primary School
Mundaring Christian College
Hillside Christian College
Swan View Senior High School
Weld Square Primary School
Greensense is working with Western Power and the Perth Solar City project to run the Bring It Down challenge.
Seven Perth schools have been challenged to reduce their energy use over seven weeks. The school that makes the biggest saving will win a $10,000 eco-makeover for their school from Perth Solar City. We have provided each school with a real-time energy monitoring system to help them find energy savings and to run the competition.
We have loaded historical data on each schools energy use into Greensense View to calculate a baseline. Each week we award points to the schools based on their energy reduction against their baseline. This way smaller schools like Weld Square Primary School can compete with bigger schools like Ballajura Community College.
The competition will extend over the up coming school holidays, so there is a big incentive for schools to understand and manage their energy use when the school is unoccupied. One of the top tips we gave schools was to develop ‘switch off’ plans for their class rooms and common areas. These apply from lunch breaks, to after school, and from weekends to school holidays.
Every school dashboard can be viewed from the Bring It Down page on the Perth Solar City web site, or you can click on the schools below to see how they are going:
Upper Swan Primary School
Ballajura Community College
Woodbridge Primary School
Mundaring Christian College
Hillside Christian College
Swan View Senior High School
Weld Square Primary School
We’ll be tracking the competition and providing advice to the schools throughout the competition and you can follow the action on our Twitter stream: @GreensenseView.
Greentech Media recently published an article titled “The Rise of Information Based Cleantech”. It explores the value of technology, information, data and automation in building an energy efficient future — the sweet-pot of our technology Greensense View®.
A couple of the key points they discuss are:
Data as a Service
Our energy networks and the energy guzzling equipment that runs on them are still not that smart, but they’re becoming more intelligent as sensors and communications become cheaper and more widely available. This intelligence allows the collection and analysis of massive amounts of data that can be leveraged for monitoring and verification of performance and identification of efficiency opportunities.
Automation
Once we have the data related to energy production, distribution and consumption, the next natural step is to tackle the optimisation of these activities. Information plus automation can lead to significant resource and dollar savings.
Simply put, the data matters. 23% of Australia’s emissions are directly attributable to energy demand in commercial and residential buildings. Everything in our buildings that consumes (or generates) energy can be metered and monitored today. This data significantly improves the overall quality and quantity of our decision making, engages and educates building occupants and fuels innovation and collaboration that ultimately accelerates the move to a more energy efficient future.
Whilst most businesses and employees here in WA will have been enjoying last Monday off for the Queens Birthday public holiday, for many of our commercial buildings it was business as usual. The building management system (BMS) that manages the air conditioning, turns on the lights or powers up the lifts, is often blissfully unaware that its a public holiday and the building is actually empty. Significant energy (and dollars) are wasted as a result.
I took a moment to look over some data from one or two of the Greensense View® dashboards of our clients, and sure enough it didn’t take long to find an example of a BMS hard at work when it should be taking the day off. The image below shows the energy profile for one of our clients for the current week. Remember that Monday 27 was a public holiday.
The facility in question is a fairly typical office building. In this chart, we are separating out electricity used by the air conditioning system (the green data series) from general power used by office lighting, pcs and so on. You can clearly see that on Monday the air con fired up a little after 7am, just as it normally would, and ran through until the end of the business day, even though the office was empty. When you consider there are around 10 public holidays in WA each year, the wasted energy for this building alone would total more than $1000 a year.
So whilst a correctly configured and maintained BMS can be vital in helping to run a building efficiently, an incorrectly configured system can be worse than none at all. Naturally, when a building is being run for us by a computer, we often stop questioning what exactly is going on and simply trust that the computer is doing the right thing. This example highlights that this is not always the case and there are often good opportunities available to reduce energy waste simply by ensuring the computers we use to run our buildings are doing the right thing.
There are a number of worthwhile programmes in progress at the moment which have taken my interest, and I thought I would share some of them with you. While climate change issues seem to have taken a back step to health and taxes in the political arena, it’s nice to see some of these programmes taking place to keep our mind on things we can all be doing.
During May, here in Western Australia, daysofchange.org has been running a very comprehensive multi-channel campaign on broad sustainability changes that everyone can make in their lives both at home and work . One of the things I like about this programme is that it gives you the opportunity to state the actions you are already undertaking, as well as pledge to make new improvements in your life. If you haven’t been to their web site to fill out your profile, it’s not too late!
Another programme starting this week has a more specific focus — International Green IT Awareness Week www.greenitweek.org. This event promises some very practical presentations as well as good resources on the event website. You might like to send a link to your IT Manager.
The web sites both post tips about improvements you can make. Even though the audiences are very different for these programmes, one of the themes you can see on both these web sites is the monitoring of energy consumption. Our Greensense View product is designed specifically to help organisations tackle this issue. We believe this is a great way to drive energy efficiency programmes that save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A Negawatt is the opposite of a Megawatt. It’s a unit of energy we didn’t have to generate due to energy efficiency.
Negawatt power is cheaper and greener then wind, solar or tidal power. It’s been estimated that every kilowatt of savings at the plug actually contributes 3 kilowatts of savings in total due to energy losses from generation, distribution and consumption.
According to modelling from the International Energy Association, energy efficiency offers the biggest scope for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It can contribute more abatement than renewable energy, more than carbon capture and storage and more than nuclear power.
The IEA goes on to say in their report:
Energy-effiency investments in buildings, industry and transport usually have short pay-back periods and negative net abatement costs, as the fuel-cost savings over the lifetime of capital stock often outweigh the additional capital costs of the efficiency measure, even when future savings are discounted.
While the recent name change of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency probably has more to do with the Government’s backflip on the ETS the focus on energy efficiency is welcome.
Greensense View is one way we are supporting energy efficiency. Contact us, if you’d like to find out more.
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.
In a recent announcement by the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, from the second half of 2010 owners of commerical office buildings will be required to disclose energy efficiency ratings when they lease or sell their property.
Specifically, building owners will need to provide a current Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC), including a NABERS Energy base building star rating, when selling or leasing. These certificates are valid for 12 months and once the legislation is in place, owners of non-compliant buildings will face a fine or prosecution.
To begin with, the rules will only apply to the sale or lease of office space of more than 2,000 square meters. It is expected that around 2,170 commercial office buildings will be required to provide energy efficiency ratings, from a national total of 3,900 buildings.
The legislation is designed to help prospective buyers and tenants make more informed decisions when they’re looking for office space. Public disclosure of energy efficiency ratings will hopefully create a market that rewards better performing buildings and stimulates greater investment in energy efficiency as buyers and tenants demand buildings that are more efficient.
In early 2010 Greensense will be launching a real-time energy and greenhouse emissions management dashboard for commerical buildings.
If you’re the owner or operator of a commerical office building and would like to understand what this new legislation means for you, you can contact me at peter@greensense.com.au
Sweden has reversed a decades-old ban on nuclear power stations, according to a recent report by Associated Press, saying they need nuclear power to meet their carbon emission reduction targets. In 1980 Swedes voted in a referendum to phase out nuclear power, at a time when safety concerns were high. Since then there has been considerable change in community attitudes because of concerns about climate change.
Sweden has large hydroelectric power sources, but even so, energy usage is growing and it is struggling to meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets: phasing out fossil fuels for heating by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
This new strategic direction has followed extensive public debate in Sweden comparing the risk and cost of nuclear power with the risk and cost of climate change. There seems to be much less debate in Australia on a sustainable energy future.
It is clear that Australian government is keen to sustain the coal industry through investment in so called ‘clean coal’ and compensation to protect the industry from the CPRS. While the government is investing less in renewable energy, it has committed to ensuring that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity supply comes from renewable energy sources by 2020 through an expended Renewable Energy Targets scheme.
The Howard government attempted to begin debate on nuclear power in Australia, commissioning the Switkowski Report, which called nuclear energy ‘the least-cost low-emission technology that can provide baseload power and which is well established.’ However, the Rudd government has only shown interest in supporting uranium mining and exports.
A common argument in favour of nuclear power is that it can provide ‘base load power’, unlike renewable energy sources. However, a recent government report found significant potential for renewable energy to provide base load power.
What are your views on Australia’s energy strategy?
The Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) met in Perth on the second of October. This is the premier meeting of Australian state and territory leaders with the Federal Government. Its role is to achieve policy reform on areas of national significance that require cooperative action by Australian governments. While their discussions are wide ranging, covering everything from the economy to indigenous health, of particular interest to us are the agreements relating to climate change. These discussions centred on improving energy efficiency and the new Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.
Energy Efficiency
COAG has agreed to develop a National Strategy for Energy Efficiency to accelerate energy efficiency efforts across all governments. The strategy should also help households and businesses prepare for the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). The strategy is expected to be ready around June 2009.
Meanwhile, COAG has agreed to develop national legislation for appliance energy performance standards and labelling. Work done here here will be fed into the energy efficiency strategy. A national framework should simplify enforcement and improve consistency across Australia.
This is a very positive step because improving energy efficiency is the most important strategy for reducing carbon emissions.
Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage has been identified by some as one of the major pathways to lower carbon emissions. In July 2008, the Group of Eight economies set the goal to commit by 2010 to at least 20 industrial scale demonstration projects to enable the broad deployment of carbon capture and storage technology by 2020.
In September the Prime Minister announced the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. The institute’s role is to accelerate the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage technology. It will also assist supporting areas such as regulatory frameworks.
COAG agreed that the Commonwealth would work with State and Territory governments to finalise the design of the Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute. And they agreed with the principles of supporting CCS research and eventual commercial deployment.
Around 80% of Australia’s electricity production currently comes from coal, and coal exports will earn about $43 billion in 2008-09. Given our heavy reliance on coal and coal exports, it is understandable that the Australian government is keen to fast-track research into this area.
To date although small scale projects have been built, no industrial scale integrated CCS power plant has been built. However as Garnaut points out if carbon capture and storage fails Australia may still be be a country of low-cost and low-emission energy because of abundant geothermal, solar, wind, wave and biomass renewable resources and reserves of natural gas and uranium.
So while COAG’s interest in climate change is positive we should hope that we’re not putting too many eggs in too few baskets. The full COAG communique can be found here.
