Posts Tagged ‘enabling technologies’
Retrofittable Window Insulation
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on November 14th, 2011
Source: EcoVoice
Photo by sanbeiji via flickr CC
In October 2011 MEP Films launched Enerlogic® Window Film, a retrofit window film designed to give single-glazed windows the thermal performance of triple-glazed windows. Adding up to 92% more insulation to windows, it can deliver year-round results in cold, warm or mixed climates, with two types of film available. Enerlogic®35 has been designed to deflect 99% UV rays and 76% solar heat, and is suited to warmer climates. Enerlogic® 70 allows the winter sun’s natural light and warmth to enter the building while shielding the heat from the summer sun, for cooler climates.
Read more about this product on Eco-Voice.
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NB: We try not to promote specific products here on Sustainable Melbourne, and we can’t endorse a brand, but this seemed like a product that would be of interest. KA
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The Tankulator: Rain Harvesting Calculator
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on October 28th, 2011
The Tankulator is a free online rain harvesting calculator that can help you plan for a new rainwater tank or improve the performance of an existing tank.
The Tankulator has been developed by the Alternative Technology Association, Australia’s leading not-for-profit organisation promoting sustainable solutions for the home. Click on the Get Started button, fill out the online questionnaire then click on the Get Tankulating button. An interactive graph will appear that will display your calculations.
Once the calculation is complete, you can compare different scenarios to find the best match for your circumstances. Will you run out of rainwater in a dry year if you live in Canberra and plumb a 10,000 litre tank to your toilet and laundry?
Buying a rainwater tank?
- Tank Materials: Compare the cost, environmental impact, life span and other specs of different types of tank materials. Hear what ATA members say about the tanks they have chosen.
- Tank Siting and Installation: What will fit on your property and where to put it? Pros and cons of different approaches to placement and installation of your tanks.
- Tank Filtration: What kind of filtration do you need on your system? What degree of maintenance are you willing to undertake?
- Pumps: Most rainwater systems will need a pump; what do you need to know? Also, pumps can use a lot of energy but there are ways to design your pumping system to reduce energy use.
Visit the Tankulator website to find out more.
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A free online seminar on rainwater harvesting and greywater will be held by the ATA on Tuesday, November 8 at 11am. Visit http://www.ata.org.au/news/rainwater-and-greywater-webinar/ for more details.
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Local Harvest Website for Melbourne: Seeking Input
Posted in Models, Movements, Seeking by Kate Archdeacon on August 4th, 2011
Source: Ethical Consumer Group
Image: This Is A Wake Up Call via flickr CC
There is a growing need for easy-to-use information for sourcing food locally.
Local Harvest will be a website resource focusing on food relocalisation and the promotion of alternatives for food production in an urban setting. This includes a national directory for finding food co-ops, food swap meets, community gardens, farmers markets, box systems, ‘pick your own’ farms, farm-gate products, organic retailers, seed saver networks, free-range meats, and more. Users can find alternative local food sources based on their own locality by placing in a postcode.
A second component will be the promotion and exploration of do-it-yourself alternatives for food production and meeting essential needs, including resources for growing your own food, making your own produce, storing and preserving, low energy living.
We will largely be drawing from the many existing resources, and collating them into one place. This idea is based on the one existing for the USA found at www.localharvest.org.
- Core objectives of the project are to help people move away from dependence on the supermarket and industrial food system, and support local producers, reduce transport distance and associated energy and carbon impact, and build up connections between urban consumers and rural producers.
- The target audience is initially city dwellers who are looking to minimise their impact regarding food choices. Ultimately however, it will be a useful resource for everyone who eats and is concerned about making a difference with their everyday purchasing choices.
- Additional components such as a forum and blog by producers and/ or users may be included to enhance the ‘community’ and resource sharing aspect. A companion to the website resource will be an iPhone and smart-phone app using the same data.
- Local Harvest will be comprehensive and user-friendly, and an effective tool in encouraging behaviour change in food choices.
Involvement
Let us know if you’d like to be involved in this project. Here’s some ideas.
- be part of the organising team
- help with funding
- tidying up the content
- contributing content (resources you know of in your area)
www.ethical.org.au/local_harvest
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Better Place: EV Network for Canberra 2012
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on July 5th, 2011
Source: Climate Spectator
From “Green Deals: EV Pricing Takes Shape” by Giles Parkinson & Samson Adams:
Electric vehicle network operator Better Place has formally sealed a deal to bring the first switchable battery vehicle, the Renault Fluence ZE, to Australia next year, and to provide a new model for managing the costs of transportation. The deal between Better Place and Renault extends an arrangement in Israel and other countries, where the car manufacturer agrees to import the Fluence and use the Better Place infrastructure to charge the vehicle, as well as the battery swapping stations, which Better Place says will take as little time as it does to fill a car with petrol.
The first cars will be deployed when the Canberra network is launched in early 2012. The pricing arrangements for the five-seater Renault have not yet been announced, but it is expected to be around $30,000 for the car only, comparable with other medium-sized cars. Better Place will then offer a battery leasing arrangement that will include the cost of the battery, access to charging stations at home and in public areas, and the cost of the electricity, as well as navigation services, 24-hour customer service and support.
Better place argues that a “fixed price for mobility” will free car owners from the constant volatility of petrol prices, and the cost or repairs of a vehicle engine with hundreds of moving parts. “When you buy a petrol car you are effectively signing a contract to bring it back to the oil cartel once or twice a week and promise to buy petrol at whatever price they say,” Better Place Australia CEO Evan Thornley said. “Our subscription will cover everything and it will be competitive with petrol.”
It is expected that the Better Place arrangement will be attractive for consumers who currently spend $80 or more a week on petrol. In Israel, the Renault Fluence is being sold for $33,100, with monthly subscription priced at $350 for an annual 23,000km package, or up to $430 for a 30,000km package. The network will be open for other EVs to charge their cars, but Better Place is confident that other manufacturers will eventually produce EVs specially tailored to its network and its rechargeable battery model.
Read the full article on Climate Spectator or visit Better Place Australia.
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In-Home Displays for Energy Management
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on May 31st, 2011
From “Origin of an energy revolution” by Giles Parkinson:
The roll-out of in-house display systems for energy use promises to revolutionise the way the consumers understand and consume energy. Origin, the largest retailer in the country, has kicked it off by announcing the largest pilot scheme of in-home displays in Australia – one that will involve 5,000 households over the next six months. But the rollout has far greater implications than consumer experience: it also promises to revolutionise the way that energy utilities conduct their business.
[..]
A report released last year by Ernst & Young entitled Seeing Energy Differently described the challenge facing energy utilities in dealing with the providers of new “smart technology” and responding to the demands of improved efficiency. Basically it came down to two options: either the utilities form partnerships with third parties to help consumers manage their energy and evolve the model into a new, sophisticated form of energy service; or they stonewall and come under competitive attack all along the value chain.
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Origin has chosen as its partner the Colorado-based Tendril, which provides an in-home display that allows customers “unprecedented visibility” into energy usage, personalised estimates of monthly electricity bills and the ability to control household consumption. It allows communications over the web, mobile phone and home area networks, and can link with smart appliances and electric vehicles. And, of course, the energy company can see this information too.
Exactly how that business model will evolve is not yet clear because there are so many different factors that can still be brought to bear. But for Australian energy consumers, in-house displays – which look something like the dashboard displays in your car – are not far away. After the six-month pilot, Origin intends to then roll out the displays to all its 4.6 million customers – although the extent to which this can happen will depend on the rollout of the underlying infrastructure, which in this case is smart meters.
Craig [Phil Craig, the head of retail at Origin Energy] says that by the end of the decade, consumers can expect to have smart appliances in their home that can respond to a pricing signal and turn themselves off. There will be charge points in the garage where the plug-in electric vehicle can choose the best time to charge itself, or even send electrons back into the grid. And, says Davis [sic], there could be much larger solar systems on our homes.
[...]
“It will be a whole different model. Energy will be a more engaging product, people will be more interested and more actively thinking about it. We have got to try and stay ahead of the trends, adapt and try to understand what the new business model looks like.”
And the cost? The rollout of smart meters has gotten bad press, because so far it has involved higher electricity bills with little ability to modify behaviour.
Craig says the in-home displays should change those dynamics. But the cost that people will be paying in years to come will be governed as much by generation and network costs, as it will by in home displays. And other factors will also come into play, such as solar, which will be more economically viable and could lead to larger systems. “It depends how people react. But we will be putting power into the hands of consumers, so if they want to do something about it, they can change the nature of their consumption.”
Read the full article by Giles Parkinson on Climate Spectator.
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A quick search seems to indicate that the In-Home Displays (IHD) are being offered to households in the Australian Government’s Solar Cities program – below are a couple of links for more information. KA
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Garage Sale Trail 2011
Posted in Events, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 31st, 2011
| 10 April , 2011 |
What if all the garage sales in your area were held on the same day? You could plan your route and visit heaps of different sales easily – maybe even with a bike and a trailer.
The Garage Sale Trail is about sustainability, community and fun. By getting people together to turn their old stuff into someone else’s new stuff, the day not only proves that second hand items can still have value, it keeps rubbish off the street, removes clutter from cupboards, stops a bunch of new things being brought into the world (along with the environmental impact that creates) and gives everyone good reason to meet the neighbours and have a good natter at the same time.
The Garage Sale Trail is on Sunday April 10 all around Australia – check out the map to see sales in your area or add your own. The site also has a free app to let you navigate easily on the day using your phone.
http://www.garagesaletrail.com.au/
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Smart Garden Watering: Website Launched
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on March 17th, 2011
http://www2.smartgardenwatering.org.au/
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Aquaponics at CERES
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on September 24th, 2010
| 9 October , 2010 | ||
| 23 October , 2010 | ||
| 24 October , 2010 |
http://www.ceres.org.au/greentech/workshops
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Pixel Building
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on August 24th, 2010
Source: Green Building Council Australia (GBCA)
Grocon’s new Pixel building, the first carbon neutral office building in Australia, has achieved the highest Green Star score ever awarded by the Green Building Council of Australia. Pixel has achieved a perfect score of 100 points under the Green Star rating system for building design, with 75 points the benchmark for 6 Star Green Star. It gained an extra five points for innovation, equating to world leadership. Included in Pixel’s five innovation points were points for carbon neutrality, a vacuum toilet system, the anaerobic digestion system and reduced car parking. The water initiatives in the project mean the building could be self sufficient for water – in this context, the project is water balanced as well as carbon neutral. The designers of Pixel are all Victorian firms – architects studio505, sustainability and services engineers Umow Lai and the structure engineer, VDM Consulting.
The building features Pixelcrete – a type of concrete which halves the embodied carbon in the mix – as well as wind turbines invented in Bendigo, the Melbourne University designed ‘living roof’ which re-introduces Victorian grassland species to the Melbourne area, and tracking photovoltaic roof panels. The sun shade system on the exterior of the building will provide the maximum amount of daylight into the office space, protecting it from glare and heat in the summer, while smart window technology ensures windows will open automatically on cool nights to enable air flow into the building.
Read the full article from GBCA.
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Stormwater Harvesting & Reuse: Kalkallo, Vic
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on August 18th, 2010
Source: Smart Water Fund
Yarra Valley Water has won the ‘Master-planning and design’ category of the 2009 Stormwater Excellence Awards for its proposed Kalkallo Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse Project, at the new Merrifield development in Melbourne’s north. The project will involve capturing and treating stormwater from a 160 hectare catchment area within commercial land at Merrifield. In the future, it is hoped that the treated water may supplement the drinking water supply across the development and Melbourne’s growing northern corridor. In 2009 the project received more than $9.6 million funding under the first round of the Federal Government’s ‘Water for the Future – National Urban Water and Desalination Fund’.
The stormwater will be collected via traditional stormwater drains. It will then be treated in a series of architecturally-designed wetlands along the Hume Highway frontage of Merrifield, including settling ponds and wetlands and then stored in a large dam. The wetlands will incorporate best-practice sustainability design principles, which will manage the quality and quantity of stormwater collected from the area. From there the water will pass through a state-of-the-art treatment plant, which will produce a drinking-water-quality end product, used to supplement the development’s recycled water supply. Eventually, it is hoped it can supplement the potable water supply when rigorous monitoring and data collection demonstrates that it is safe to do so.
“This water sensitive approach at Merrifield will be a leading example for future cities. It shows how the water industry is proactively creating solutions for the community to maximise use of alternative water sources, and reduce the excess stormwater degrading our streams and waterways,” says Mr Tony Kelly, Yarra Valley Water Managing Director. “The Kalkallo Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse Project is set to be a project of international significance, showcasing how urban water infrastructure can be designed differently to deliver a more resilient water solution.”
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