Carbon Conservation & Energy Efficiency - Archive

Warning: Australia’s Greenhouse Emissions are on the rise!

It has been a turbulent time during the last few weeks regarding the climate change issue. There have been a number of natural disasters all around Australia all linked to weather pattern changes. Although, some may argue that these would have happened anyway –saying that these have nothing to do with global warming- it is unlikely. There has been an increase of floods all around the world in the last few years as well as extreme temperatures resulting in bush fires or heavy snow falls in countries where they don’t normally have these. And the list goes on. But I won’t go on about this as it is a huge issue in itself, just look at Bruce’s previous blog with the weather map of Australia; it sums it up succinctly.

What is a concern is that the first reaction of the Australian federal government is to cut back on the environment budget in order to rebuild flood-affected areas. Fair enough some of those policies were real duds anyway but weren’t some of these catastrophes caused by the fact that we have been putting too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? So it would make more sense to try to reduce these to minimise the occurrence of more natural disasters. However, this is not the case. According to an article in The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-emissions-to-double-unless-action-taken-20110211-1aqnb.html) quoting Ross Garnaut the way we are going at the moment Australia’s greenhouse emissions will increase by 24% by 2020 (based on 2000 levels). Hang on; weren’t we supposed to reduce our emissions by an incredible 5% by then? Oh, yes but we still haven’t got any decent policies in place such as a carbon tax after years of debating it. Instead the current and the previous federal governments have spent around $5.5 billion on mediocre and piece meal abatement programs some of which were very poorly-managed indeed.

Overall all these approaches will not make hell of a lot of difference to Australia’s greenhouse emissions and we paid a very high price for the minuscule CO2 that we did manage to curtail, which is estimated to be about one-tenth of that famous 5% target. See: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-cash-goes-up-in-smoke-20110214-1atnh.html). On a state government level (referring to our home state Victoria) the recently-elected government doesn’t seem to have much to say about Climate Change –so far. They are not too concerned to the extent that some of them don’t even believe in it and suggest the commissioning of more brown coal power stations to keep up with the ever increasing electricity demand.

The only ones that are actually rolling their sleeves up and are really doing something about reducing greenhouse emissions are our local governments with the support of their constituents. There are many passionate people in these organisations that are constantly doing the right thing. In many cases they are ignoring the financial cost of implementing strategies in order to improve their environmental impact. Those higher up should learn from them.

It is paramount that we as a country start doing something about Climate Change. The longer we wait the more it will cost the economy to retool and the longer we wait the worse it will get when it comes to natural disasters.

Don’t trust your home’s star rating to reduce your environmental impact

Reports recently published in newspapers indicate that the government’s mandatory energy star rating schemes of homes is rather inaccurate. The scheme has been heavily-criticised by the building industry (HIA and MBA) and they are calling on scientists and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to review the way the star rating is calculated for new houses.

Applying the same software to the whole continent is not the right approach either. Most importantly there is another fundamental issue that relates to the way a home is used –which has more to do with the occupants than the actual construction of the house itself.

The main problem cited by the building industry involves the three government-approved tools used to award the star six star rating. Basically it means that there are unacceptable differences between the star ratings produced by the various software tools when assessing the same house. The flaws in the star rating system were discovered after industry representatives, private companies and scientists commissioned independent studies to test the software tools on identical houses. For example the independent testing showed that the same Brisbane house had a variation of 3.2 stars when different software tools were used to audit it. In addition the software tools are easy to manipulate to get the desired results. A side issue is the under-qualified assessors who don’t operate under any quality programs.

The second issue relates to the fact the same software tools are used Australia-wide. Since the software tools mainly deal with heating and cooling to deliver a star rating they don’t take into consideration the varying climates found in Australia. In each part of Australia there will be different contributions of heating and cooling and we have little real data to help us in our understanding of by how much, or whether at all, star ratings will help reduce consumption. A respected scientist explained that the star rating doesn’t actually measure the electricity demand in a given house. So basically there is no correlation between the stars and GHG emissions.

It has been suggested that end-use metering study should be commissioned to determine overall home energy use, energy use by home appliances and the assessment of the thermal performance of the building shell for different housing types. Also, the overall performance of the recently-built six star homes should be assessed to create a valid database to establish if the star rating scheme has in fact helped reduce energy consumption.

The third observation was expressed by a university professor who explained that in reality the behaviour of the occupants of a house dictate the energy consumption. It doesn’t matter how many stars a home has if the occupants don’t use it responsibly. It could be stacked with electrical appliances like LCD screens, fridges or with inefficient halogen lighting. The software tools merely calculate the potential savings based on the fabric of the house, insulation, wall materials and of course the likely heating and cooling. Therefore, it is really up to the individual to act responsibly and to have an interest in reducing greenhouse emissions and of course their electricity bills.

For more detailed information and pdf file go to this site: https://carbonetix.com.au/why_your_5_star_energy_efficient_home_isnt.php

(Ref: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/eco-threat-to-house-prices/story-e6frg6z6-1225904124270 and
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/energy-star-ratings-in-disarray/story-fn6tcs23-1225899270215 )

home energy star rating

Tracking Energy Use

Posted by Barney Mezey in Electricity Distribution | Electricity Supply | Energy Efficiency | HVAC - heating, ventilation and air-conditioning | Home - (1 Comments)

I’ve decided to write this blog in a somewhat different format than usual. I thought I should share some of my observations in tracking energy use since I’ve been involved for a little while now in installing, analysing, presenting and monitoring ‘real time tracking systems’ (or ‘carbonrealtime’) as we refer to it.

I was actually really shocked to learn recently -when an environment officer at one of the councils posed the question to a small business audience, whether they knew how much power they used, how much their tariff rates were or how much their actual bills were- that most didn’t have a clue. Out of about 35 people only one knew. The rest had no idea! Even more surprising was the fact that a few of these audience members were accountants and financial advisors. They just automatically pay their bills both at home and for their businesses. How are you supposed to reduce your electricity use, cost and of course greenhouse emissions if you don’t even know (or care) how much you use and pay?

So there are a number of ways to overcome this problem of knowing your electricity use. Starting with the analysis of basic yearly use of the bi or three monthly bills you can get a bit of an idea what’s happening throughout the year. However, many of the larger sites already have interval electricity meters. These record power consumption every 15 minutes and eventually send some aggregated data to the suppliers. This information can be requested free of charge from the electricity retailer and we usually do this on our client’s behalf. Having access to at least a year’s worth of data is extremely useful. If you know how to compile the data and what to look out for one can get a really good idea of a site’s usage profile and how to save energy.

If your site doesn’t have interval metering another option is to install temporary electricity loggers on various distribution boards. Again the data obtained from this is very useful and we often do this for specific circuits at some of the sites. However, the latest revolution is in online tracking. We have developed an affordable real time tracking system that is extremely easy to install and then it’s plug and play. Once set up the device sends the data through the internet and can be accessed from anywhere. The user-friendly interface on the monitor presents all the data in an easy to understand language with graphs and images that don’t need a physics degree to understand. Some of our systems have everything incorporated such as water, gas, electricity consumption/generation and temperature. All these are highly valuable tools for any facilities or environment managers and even for educational purposes.

The ‘carbonrealtime’ systems are used in households and offices greatly reducing energy consumption but schools and council buildings have also installed them to keep an eye on their energy use. From some of these systems a few sites have already identified huge wastage that occur out of operating hours during the night or weekends. The findings from larger council site had effected changes in the HVAC BMS in relation to public holidays, starting and finishing times or discovering faulty equipment or in one instance double charging of electricity over 12 years! Lowering the base load is another useful outcome of using such a system. The tracking system can also be employed to overcome electricity apportioning disputes between tenants, which we often have to investigate for our clients.

With electricity prices going up constantly and with the emphasis on reducing greenhouse emissions; monitoring your electricity consumption is no doubt one of the most important steps towards averting huge electricity bills and the threats of climate change.

carbonrealtime, electricity bills, electricity monitor, electricity tagging, energy use, save electricity, save energy, tariff rates

Solar Thermal Energy – The Neglected Renewable Energy in Australia

Contrary to what the terminology suggests ‘solar thermal energy’ is not a recent development and it is certainly not something that has just been invented as another answer to reduce greenhouse emissions. According to the Renewable Institute for Sustainable Research, the first solar powered engines were constructed back in the 1860s by a couple of French mathematicians. During the past 30 years a number of solar thermal plants have been built and operated around the world to produce guilt-free electricity. However, the technology has been rapidly evolving in recent years and Australia has perfected the technology to make it commercially more viable.

Unlike wind power or solar photovoltaic panels, which generate electricity directly, solar thermal power uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy onto a receiver and create heat, which can then be used to produce steam to run a turbine and generate electricity, in the same way as a conventional coal-fired power station. The other advantage of solar thermal technology is that it can be stored very efficiently in large tanks of molten salt and then be dispatched to generate electricity at any time of the day or night, making it in effect base load solar power.

The way solar thermal energy plants work is by focusing the glare of the sun’s rays on a central location –usually on a tall solar tower- to create heat, which is then turned into electricity. The concentrated heat is extreme between 500-2000 C and it could easily melt metal. Due to various heat exchange processes involved –which were further advanced in Australia- the water eventually turns to steam, powering the turbines at the base.

Various methods exist to concentrate the solar radiation, including parabolic troughs, power towers with mirrors that track the sun (heliostats), parabolic dishes, and Fresnel reflectors (these consist of multiple flat mirrors). Each technology differs in the way that it concentrates the solar energy, but they all track the sun to maximise energy capture and produce heat, which is then converted to electricity.

These technologies are at different stages of development and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. It is fair to say that parabolic troughs are the most mature, having first been installed at utility scale in the 1980s; although the other types may ultimately prove cheaper due to their inherent design advantages. These technologies have been successfully used in the USA and Spain since the 1980s. But the Australian National University has re-designed the dish for optimisation for manufacturing and mass production with mirror panels that should be able to concentrate the sun at least 2,000 times.

Solar Thermal Uptake in Australia

Australia has large areas of high solar intensity and little rain, where large concentrations of renewable energy power stations could be developed. In fact the Australian continent has the highest average amount of solar radiation per square meter per year of any continent on the planet ranging from 1500 to 1900 kWh/m2/year. In other words Australia is better-suited to this technology than any other country in the world, including Spain who is expecting to operate 60 solar thermal plants by 2013.

Peter Meurs (Managing Director of WorleyParsons-EcoNomics) has said that establishing advanced solar thermal centres could allow Australia to exceed the 20 per cent renewable energy target by:

• Facilitating the commercialisation of developing renewable energy technologies.
• Triggering the development of domestic solar thermal component manufacturing.
• Enabling Australia to become a world leader in these technologies.
• Allowing the construction of larger scale solar thermal power stations over time.

Wizard Power is also part of the same consortium who has been trying to commercialise big dish technology in Australia for the past five years. Their unique technology was developed by the Australian National University’s solar thermal group over the past 40 years who have perfected ‘the big dish’ and they’ve also figured how to best store the sun’s energy thermo-chemically. It appears that Wizard Power may be getting some support from the federal government in the form of $60 million towards a $230 million solar plant it’s building in South Australia. Wizard Power suggested Whyalla in South Australia as an ideal place to establish large scale solar facilities, because of the climate and the number of large scale resource projects requiring power. Australia’s very first solar oasis in Whyalla is going to provide enough electricity to power the town of Whyalla and also to provide power to the neighbouring steel works. In total it’s capable of powering approximately 9000 average homes or replacing something in the order of 17000 motor vehicles on the road each year in terms of carbon emissions.

There is no reason why Australia couldn’t match the Spanish government’s commitment who is expecting to cover 12 percent of its primary energy from renewable sources by the end of this year. Spain is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of solar power technology and exports 80 percent of its production to Germany. Australia cannot quite export electricity to other countries but we could export our expertise in this technology to build solar thermal plants in other countries. At the same time there is no reason why 30 solar thermal plants could not provide 40 per cent of Australia’s renewable energy needs by 2020-according to WorleyParsons. But to achieve this goal, action must be taken today.

References:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13826548)
http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2010/s2925759.htm
http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/advancing_solar_thermal/002019/
http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/04/12/mega-solar-the-worlds-13-biggest-solar-thermal-energy-projects/
K. Lovergrove and M. Dennis Solar Thermal Energy Systems in Australia 2006 International Journal of Environmental Studies (www.tandf.co.uk/journals)

solar thermal electricity, solar thermal energy, solar thermal in Australia, Whyalla South Australia solar electricity

Climate Change and Water Shortage

Posted by Barney Mezey in Climate Change | Electricity Distribution | Electricity Supply - (0 Comments)

Easing water restrictions in Victoria may have an undesirable impact on the fight against climate change. According to a recent article in The Age, “the sight of greener gardens and healthier trees that will regain our image as the ‘garden state’ will also turn people’s attention away from the bigger environmental picture – that is global warming”. The soon to be available extra water also means more greenhouse emissions and more climate change.

Some observers expressed that for many Australians climate change wasn’t a real issue until their backyards began to turn brown. Water restrictions for these people were the most visible and tangible manifestation of the drought and that there is something going on with our climate. Lifting water restrictions is sending the wrong message to the public and once again relegates concerns about global warming to the back of their minds. However, the extra water won’t be falling out of the sky either.

Unfortunately the lifting of water restrictions is not entirely due to the restoration of normal rainfall and increased dam levels (which may have appeared so during the deluges of the last few months) but due to the completed construction of the north-south pipeline and the controversial desalination plant near Wonthaggi. (Some cynics say it is also due to the upcoming state elections).

Ironically, to compensate for the reduced rainfall which is most likely a consequence of changed weather patterns, we are building a desalination plant that is extremely energy intensive and polluting. The annual energy use of the plant will be around 900 GWh. The pollution from this will equal to putting 365,000 cars on the road emitting around 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 (in terms of black balloons that’s around 30 billion of them). This is not including the ‘carbon footprint’ of the plant during construction, which equals to about 1.4 million tonnes of CO2. It is still not clear where the extra energy will come from but it was suggested that gas-fired power stations.

There are of course many other side effects of the desal plant that environmentalists highlighted, such as producing 30,000 tonnes of solid waste that include toxic chemicals and 200 million tonnes of brine that will be pumped back into the ocean each year. All of which will impact on marine life without knowing what the ultimate outcome will be.

Many people believe that we should be focusing on better ways to capture and store the remaining rainwater instead of constructing desalination plants that will significantly increase greenhouse emissions which in term contribute to the larger issue of climate change. Despite the reduced levels of rainfall it is still more than enough to cover our water usage if it is harnessed properly. Money would be better spent providing households with water tanks, which would have much less impact on climate change. Otherwise, we will have to deal with more than just shorter showers and not being allowed to water our gardens or wash our cars at home.

water shortage