Current Issue
ReNew 119 highlights
Cute little ute
Ralph Hibble has driven more than 3000 kilometres in his electric Citroën since registering it last July.
Knowing that Citroëns are lightweight vehicles suitable for electric car conversions, I have taken a Citroën 2CV, previously crashed between two four-wheel drives and converted it to electric. I am an electric vehicle and Citroën enthusiast and already own a vintage Citroën AK van, plus a more modern Citroën hatchback.
READ MORE »With a badly damaged boot from the crash, I decided to make it a utility, with 160kg of batteries bolted to the back tray. The original gearbox and disc brake have been retained, close coupled to the electric motor, while the engine, exhaust, fuel tank and air cleaner have all been removed.
The front and rear bumpers were destroyed in the crash and have been replaced with aluminium bumpers. Standard 2cv tail lights have been recessed into the ute back and a Citroën logo has been glued in place.
To read the full version of this article in PDF format, click here.
DIY cargo bike – A recycling adventure
Inspired by the abundance of cargo bikes across Europe, Simon Waugh built one at home from salvaged materials.
A while back I was lucky enough to enjoy a trip to Europe, where I was struck by the widespread use of bikes for everyday use. In Amsterdam I was particularly impressed by the ubiquitous cargo bike, to be seen at every turn ferrying children to and from primary school, bringing home the groceries or delivering goods for small businesses.
READ MORE »Often the next step after looking at a bike is trying it out, but unfortunately the opportunity never presented itself and I returned home wondering what it would be like to use one of these amazing machines for real.
I started looking at them on the internet and discovered that I could purchase an imported Bakfiets cargo bike quite easily, but the prices were enough to make my eyes water.
Birth of a shed project
Somehow the idea of owning a cargo bike just wouldn’t go away and six months later I hit on an answer—I’d build my own! Perhaps I have too much spare time, but all of those shed projects have to start somewhere.
What about raw materials? During an early morning walk around the local streets I noticed that the piles of junk waiting for the next council kerbside collection included several bikes, in various states of repair. Some were complete wrecks, while others were in reasonable condition and even too good for what I had in mind. I returned home with a couple of likely candidates: a venerable Malvern Star ‘racer’ and a ‘supermarket’ mountain bike, complete with sprung fork.
A conventional cargo bike has a smaller front wheel, typically about 20 inches (51 centimetres). This is for practical purposes, allowing the front fork to fit in front of the cargo box and making it easier to arrange a steering linkage. However, among my collection of ‘it’ll be useful some day’ bits and pieces, I had a front wheel complete with a 200 watt motor, which seemed like a worthwhile addition to the project. I couldn’t see any way of building the motor into a smaller wheel, so I decided that my cargo bike would have a full size front wheel.
Read the full article in ReNew 119.
Earth-covered, bushfire resistant library
Sitting 4.5 metres below natural ground, this library provides cool, energy efficient shelter for students at Candlebark School. By Sasha Shtargot.
Children might have few better places to learn than in the foothills of the Macedon Ranges, north-west of Melbourne, on the edge of a messmate forest with kangaroos and koalas for school buddies.
Candlebark School, started in 2006 by children’s author John Marsden, has an innovative, free-spirited attitude to education modelled on Fitzroy Community School in inner Melbourne. So when it came to building a new library, the school wanted to display its particular style and approach to learning.
The earth-covered library is a striking example of environmentally sustainable design. It was opened in September last year and cost $850,000—the money coming from the Federal Government’s Building the Education Revolution program. Why did Candlebark choose an earth-covered building? Architect Paul Haar says the school wanted to build in harmony with the sloping topography so as to keep the inspiring view of the valley below, and it needed a well-designed bushfire shelter.
Location and load-bearing materials
The library is on a south-east slope below Candlebark’s dining and meeting room, with a view into a valley of oak trees, elms and pasture. It sits on a concrete slab 4.5 metres below natural ground at its northern edge and meets natural ground level at its southern edge. The external retaining wall, made of 290mm core-reinforced concrete, is curved in a half circle. This shape more effectively resists the heavy horizontal forces placed by the earth on the wall. The south wall is curved to broader radius and consists mainly of tall counter-balanced double-hung windows and glazed doors that open to a terrace and the view beyond. Above the glazing, the south wall is framed in seasoned pine, sheathed both sides with structural grade seasoned pine plywood (to retain the edge of earth laid over the roof) and clad with fully compressed cement sheeting. Windows and external doors are framed in recycled Blackbutt hardwood and the pergola on the south terrace is made from salvaged exotic cypress pine.
About 500mm of soil covers the library roof. This depth of earth shields the building against radiant heat from sun and potential bushfire in summer, cold in winter, and stores enough moisture and nutrients to feed the grass and native ground cover plants that grow on the roof. To carry such a load of soil you would think the roof needed to be made of concrete or steel, but Paul says he stubbornly clung to the idea of an all-timber roof frame because of its sequestered carbon, easy workability and aesthetics. Massive post and beam portals of seasoned pine laminated veneer lumber (LVL) were made off site. LVL slabs were shaped and vertically screw laminated into roof beams that span continuously over posts of the same section. It took four men and a crane only 16 hours to erect the roof portals on site. Waste was minimised as off-cuts were used as purlins above the roof beams. Seasoned pine plywood was then laid over the roof purlins.
“In the end it turned out to be a really economical and attractive roof structure for an earth-covered building,” Paul says.
Read the full article in ReNew 119.
Energy efficiency on the agenda
Improved energy efficiency and better public transport funding are essential to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Is a public transport levy the way to go? And could aircraft fly lower to cut emissions? Alan Pears explores the issues.
Martin Ferguson’s Department of Energy and Resources released its draft Energy White Paper in late 2011. Comments are due by mid March, and I encourage people to make submissions. It’s a disturbing document. For example, energy efficiency, considered by most studies to be a major contributor to climate abatement, is relegated to Chapter 6 section C P.170), which is not a good sign.
READ MORE »The introduction to the quite good but modest section on demand-side issues states: “Historically energy policy and market development in Australia have had a strong supply-side focus, suggesting that there could be further potential to realise cost-effective demand-side efficiencies through an integrated market framework.”
This comes after five chapters of supply-side, growth-focused, self-congratulatory material that shows the government hasn’t learnt this lesson. The paper quotes Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics growth projections that Australian primary energy consumption will rise by 30% and electricity consumption by 42% by 2035. Yet electricity consumption has been declining for the past three years.
The paper proposes three objectives:
• Provide accessible, reliable and competitively priced energy for all Australians;
• Enhance Australia’s domestic and export growth potential;
• Deliver clean and sustainable energy.
The impact on business and household budgets is the total cost of energy, not the price per unit. A recent UK study estimated that 88% of world primary energy consumption was wasted, so energy efficiency improvement has the potential to transform our energy requirements and costs.
But this is not used to frame the approach.
If the second objective relates to energy production and use, it seems potentially incompatible with sustainable development of our overall economy and energy (the third objective), which might involve reducing energy consumption and exports.
The ‘old paradigm’ energy industry is facing increasing costs, low rates of return and long transition times. Energy and climate commentator Giles Parkinson recently said the energy industry is facing its ‘Kodak’ moment, as a new paradigm sweeps through.
The paper’s response to the energy market mess seems to be to create additional, separate markets and regulations to ‘fix’ a problem that need not exist, creating conflict between the various market signals and regulations. This is inefficient policy that is costing Australia dearly in both financial and environmental terms.
Let’s hope the final White Paper is a big improvement on the draft.
Big car and SUV buyers
It seems that most large cars and SUVs are bought by business (Richard Blackburn, The Age online, 4 Feb 2012). Private buyers prefer small cars. Since business vehicles receive tax deductions, this means the community is subsidising purchase and use of fuel guzzlers. But it’s worse than that. Business (and governments) typically own their new cars for only 40,000 to 100,000 kilometres, then sell them. Secondhand car buyers can only choose from what’s available on the secondhand market, so they use these large vehicles for the bulk of their typically 250,000 kilometre lives. So buyers of new high consumption vehicles actually lock-in a legacy of ongoing higher fuel use and running costs for future owners.
Public transport funding
The latest strategy by the road lobby in Melbourne seems to be grade separation of railway crossings, so that traffic is not affected by increasing frequency of trains. This seems to be described as rail funding, yet it does nothing for rail performance. As a rail user, it seems there is potential for boom gate closure times to be reduced by modern sensor technologies instead. It’s not hard to monitor the changing speed of a train approaching a station, and to lower boom gates if there is a risk of the train overshooting, instead of lowering them when the train is a long way from the crossing.
We should also be looking at the broader economics. If railway crossings reduce the number of cars in use by increasing congestion, that potentially brings societal economic benefits that may offset the congestion costs. It shifts more car usage to public transport and other options, and the money not spent on grade separation could be used to expand the public transport system.
Public transport funding should be revisited, possibly with a property levy, offset by free public transport entitlements. The levy size would be linked to the quality of access to public transport. My logic is that if someone lives near good public transport, but doesn’t use it, they are depriving someone else of their right to access this service.
In return, each household and business could be entitled to some free public transport usage. This would link funding to service improvement, creating an incentive for operators and government to support public transport. And it would encourage those close to public transport to use it.
A solution for low emission air travel
When British climate commentator George Monbiot wrote Heat in 2006, he found feasible low emission solutions for most aspects of modern life—except air travel. Indirect emissions from contrails (cloudy trails), cirrus cloud formation and pollutants emitted from jet engines amplify the direct warming due to carbon dioxide from aircraft fuel by three to five times, according to the IPCC.
British research that seems to have been missed by climate researchers (Victoria Williams and Robert Noland Transportation Research Part D, 2002 and 2005) has found that creation of contrails and cirrus cloud is very sensitive to the temperature and humidity of the air flown through. If the air is warm enough (typically below 6000 to 7000 metres) these effects are avoided, and the main impact is due to fuel burning, much of which could be avoided by using sustainably-sourced renewable fuel. Many propellor-driven planes already fly at this altitude. It does mean passengers may experience a bumpier ride and it slightly increases fuel consumption. It does not mean we can keep flying as much as we want, because it limits usable air space and the large direct emissions from air travel or the amount of renewable fuel they would consume would still create major environmental pressures.
State government and climate change
Industry environmental newsletter CE Daily (27 Jan 2012) has analysed the number of times the Victorian Premier and key ministers have used the term ‘climate change’ in press releases and parliament during 2011. The results are disturbing. Premier Baillieu used the term once, in a media statement about location of the Climate Change Authority in Melbourne by the Commonwealth Government. Energy Minister Michael O’Brien used it once in parliament, when quoting a Labor MP. Climate Change Minister Ryan Smith used the term only once in parliamentary debate and in two press releases.
The climate sceptics within the Victorian State Government seem to be winning. It reminds me of the Faulty Towers saying: “Just don’t mention the war!” We live in a bizarre world.
Alan Pears has worked in the energy efficiency field for over twenty years as an engineer and educator. He is Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and is co-director of environmental consultancy Sustainable Solutions.
Keeping the lights on – Battery-backed grid-interactive inverters
Got a grid-interactive power system but still want to have power when the mains grid fails? Lance Turner shows you how.
Grid-interactive solar power systems have become pretty popular in the last decade or so, but they usually have one large drawback. If the mains grid fails, for whatever reason, then your solar power system not only stops feeding energy into the grid but it also stops feeding the house.
READ MORE »The main reason for this is that it is a safety feature called anti-islanding—meaning that your home won’t act as an independent ‘island’, generating energy and trying to feed it into the grid when it shouldn’t.
But what if you want some backup for when the mains grid goes down? There’s good reasons for this, including protecting expensive refrigerated food stocks, running water pressure pumps and providing lighting during night-time failures.
Most grid-interactive systems are not designed to include battery backup and will need an inverter upgrade and possible solar array rewire to include such backup, as well as the addition of a suitably sized backup battery bank of course. However, even if you have a grid-interactive system that you are currently happy with, there’s still a way to add some battery backup, which we will look at briefly later.
Integrated systems
So what options for battery-backed grid-interactive inverters are there? There’s two broad categories: integrated inverter-chargers and what I loosely term add-on systems, which involve adding purpose-designed backup components to existing grid-interactive systems.
Making my home free from the grid
Martin Chape has made an independent power supply for his lights and home office. Next it will be the whole home as he tries to escape his electricity retailer.
As a semi-retired engineer I have always dabbled in technical projects and probably always will. This latest project came about when my electricity retailer Synergy cut the rate paid per kilowatt-hour of electricity sent to the grid to 7c per kWh, to coincide with the introduction of the West Australian government’s feed-in tariff in 2010.
READ MORE »The thought that, after my solar feed-in tariff ended in ten years, my system would become merely a cheap generator supplying all the local air conditioners at a profit to my power company annoyed me. Especially as I would have to fund any maintenance to the solar PV system from my pension.
So I decided not to invest further in additional grid-connect panels but rather, to put my dollars into making my home office totally independent of the grid. I built an off-grid solar power system with 12 volt battery storage, supplying a 240 volt inverter at the lowest cost possible.
Online shopping for parts
I sourced a pair of new 6 volt deep cycle lead-acid batteries from a local retailer. The brand was Interstate Batteries model GC2-HD-UTL, with a capacity of 216 amp-hours each. I purchased a 200 watt, 12 volt monocrystalline solar panel for $500 from eBay store LHP Power, which came with a 25-year warranty, and found a low cost 10 amp solar controller from a Chinese eBay supplier.
The solar controller has three sets of connectors, one for the PV panel, one for the load, and the third for the battery bank. The solar controller prevents overcharging the batteries, unwanted discharge of the batteries through the PV system at night, and disconnects the load to prevent battery damage if it becomes run down.
After purchasing a couple of low cost 800 watt 12-240 volt inverters from another Chinese eBay store I was ready to roll with my first system.
Read the full article in ReNew 119.
New choices in lighting – An LED buyers guide
There’s been a lot more happening on the LED front since we last looked at lighting options. With most lighting set to switch to LEDs in the next few years, Lance Turner takes a look at what’s available so far.
For many people, lighting is one of the most important aspects of their home. Incorrect lighting can make a room uncomfortable to be in, and getting it right can take a bit of effort.
READ MORE »There’s a vast array of light fittings and lighting systems available, and a number of lighting technologies including the horribly inefficient but very popular incandescent, the halogen (a glorified, slightly more efficient incandescent), the fluorescent, compact fluorescent, and more recently, Light Emitting Diode, or LED.
With almost all lighting technology moving towards LEDs, this guide will primarily focus on LED technology. In 10 to 20 years, most other light sources will have disappeared in favour of the robustness, longevity and energy efficiency of LEDs.
Types of lighting
When considering lights and light fittings, you need to decide what type of lighting you want for each situation.
Lighting generally falls into four categories—general illumination, task lighting, ambient/mood lighting, and outdoor lighting. The degree of intensity will depend on personal preference and the colour of the walls and furnishings. Darker walls generally need more light to achieve the same level of perceived brightness as lighter walls.
General illumination can be of a fairly low level—enough to easily see by, but not so bright that the whole room becomes suitable for reading. However, this is a personal preference and many people like to be able to light the entire room brightly when needed, whereas others may opt for a combination of low level general lighting and small task lights near their chairs for reading.
Mood lighting may also be a concern and needs to be considered at the planning stage. The house may have a feature that would benefit from a well placed spotlight or uplighter, but lights like these are often left on for long periods and can consume a great deal of energy if the wrong lighting is used.
Garden lighting is generally either floodlighting or feature lighting, where particular plants or garden furnishings are lit individually, often by coloured lamps, for effect.
Zero energy options
While this article deals with electric lighting, there are a couple of other options that should be considered. Skylights and light pipe systems can provide more than adequate lighting levels with no use of electricity at all and, if well placed, won’t heat the room unnecessarily.
Another option is fitting reflectors to already installed fittings. Fluorescent fittings can particularly benefit from a reflector. Indeed, fitting a reflector behind a single tri-phosphor tube can result in lighting levels equal to using two cheaper quality tubes with no reflectors. This means that combining a reflector and good quality tube can effectively halve lighting energy consumption.
Energy, power and voltage
Which brings us to one of the most confusing aspects of lighting for many people.
Many lamps, particularly halogen downlights, are sold as ‘low voltage’, with the packaging implying that this equates to low energy consumption. This is rubbish. The important factor is the power rating of the lamp. Fifty watts is 50 watts, regardless of the voltage it is supplied and used at. A 12 volt bulb uses a 240 volt to 12 volt transformer to run it, so this transformer will draw 50 watts to run the bulb, plus a bit of extra that is lost in the transformer as heat.
So, when comparing bulb energy consumption, you must look at the wattage, not the voltage.
Read the full article in ReNew 119.
NSW wind draft guidelines released
The New South Wales Government released its draft wind farm guidelines late last year for public exhibition until mid March. ReNew takes a look at some of the issues around the guidelines.
Despite having what are already some of the most rigorous guidelines in the world, the draft includes tougher rules on sound levels, required community engagement and a new process around neighbour consent.
READ MORE »Although the wind industry will welcome the increased focus on community consultation and engagement, some parts of the requirements will result in more arduous and expensive developments, and in the worst case, could stagnate the industry in that state.
The government is responding to community concerns, which range from the age-old visual impact, to newer worries about health effects, as described in ReNew 116′s story on last year’s Senate Inquiry into wind farms. There have been cases where wind farm developers have not done enough to engage with local people and this has resulted in stress in some communities. Yet, some wind farm developers are excellent at engaging with the community, and the wind industry as a whole is currently working on lifting their game and developing a best practise guideline for community engagement.
The most controversial change to the Victorian wind farm guidelines in 2011 was the effective granting of veto rights to protect neighbours living within two kilometres of a proposed turbine. The new guidelines in Victoria have arguably damaged the wind industry in that state, resulting in less investment and less jobs.
The NSW guidelines seek to soften that veto and instead propose a ‘gateway’ process for consultation of neighbours within two kilometres of a proposed turbine. The choice of a two kilometre zone to trigger this process is arbitrary. In fact, last year’s Senate Inquiry into Wind Farms found that ‘the application of scientific measurements for sound and for shadow flicker to alleviate problems for wind farm neighbours may be preferable to prescribed setbacks. Prescribed setbacks are arbitrary and may be too great or too small.’
The new planning guidelines specifically require investigation into health, despite the fact that Friends of the Earth used the Freedom of Information act in January this year to reveal that NSW health officials had advised their own government that there are no direct links between wind turbines and health.
The major issue to consider is the effect tougher guidelines may have on electricity prices for consumers. Bloomberg New Energy Finance spokesman Kobad Bhavnagri told the media in February that the Victorian Government’s wind farm planning guidelines could increase Victoria’s electricity bills by up to two billion dollars in the next decade.
Bhavnagri pointed out that wind power is the cheapest and most reliable way to reach emissions reductions targets. If the most economical wind farms are ruled out due to restrictive planning regulations, then more expensive wind farms must be built instead.
Consistent and effective regulatory and planning policy is required to shore up the continuing success of the industry in New South Wales and to ensure the state’s renewable energy target is met at the lowest possible cost.
Photo: Jeff Chandler
Rammed earth home with SAPS
Di Bott and family lived in a solar powered shed for seven years while building their rammed earth home. The property features a stand-alone power supply, maintenance of a Voluntary Conservation Agreement and bushfire sprinkler system.
With a sustainably built house and responsible attitude it’s easy living here using minimal resources. Our philosophy is ‘the earth comes first’, complete in its flora, fauna and oxygen. Without those we do not exist.
READ MORE »Living as we do entails good old fashioned work, and this we take on happily to live as self sufficiently as possible and get the exercise that keeps us physically and mentally fit. We can’t blame anyone for anything that needs fixing, hence learn so much along the way. Raking the composting loo, pulling out phragmites roots that grow up the greywater line, monitoring the solar inverter, cleaning the solar panels, maintaining the backup generator, digging the compost, tending to and culling our own chooks and sheep and preserving our fruit and vegetables are just some of the regular work at home.
There is always room for improvement and we are not immune to the lure of the easy way. We try to keep our footprint as light as possible, which is why we have a Voluntary Conservation Agreement (VCA) on our property. After looking at ways to have our property protected we settled on both Land for Wildlife and a full VCA in perpetuity through the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) and National Parks. The DECC’s aim is to have wildlife corridors from the mountains to the coast for animals to safely move to better environs as the climate changes. We have a personal agreement with DECC as to how we use and protect our section of this wonderful project.
Our off-grid setup
Our house took seven years to build, hence we lived in the shed with our two boys, and yes, when we finished they left home. We installed a photovoltaic system on the shed for house building, living, and the workshop. The setup is medium size with 20 x 80W panels, with 24 x 2V batteries giving us 48V DC, plus an inverter creating standard 240 volts AC. This made it easy to build using standard power tools. Two lengths of 16mm2 cable and one separate earth lead run to the house, to minimise the transmission losses over the 70 metre cable run.
This off-grid setup cost $32,000 in 2001, minus the $8000 rebate at the time. The other choice was to connect to the grid, which was quoted at $24,000. Our average daily electricity use is 4.5kWh which includes activity in the workshop, while the average daily electricity use in Sydney is 29kWh.
There are some appliances that just don’t go with our sized system, including anything with an element such as an iron, hairdryer and clothes dryer. It’s easy to do without these, with a clothes line on a pulley system in the clerestory replacing a dryer, with an old hot iron heated on the wood heater a small luxury in winter.
Our very energy efficient Vestfrost fridge built to European energy savings standards with freezer at the bottom helps bring energy use down even further, along with cooking on a simple LP gas stove and oven.
We have a 315 litre copper coil-style Beasley water heater connected to solar hot water panels and backed up by a wood heater with wet back. To combat frequent frosts, these solar panels have anti-frost valves that open at 4°C, sending the water back to the rainwater tanks. The panels are then filled with water from the hot water tank, with this process repeated until the outside temperature rises above 4°C.
Read the full article in ReNew 119.
ReNew blog of the year winner
Some inspired folks are writing about sustainability online. Here are just some of the entries to our recent blogging competition. By Jacinta Cleary.
Last issue we invited all keen sustainability bloggers to enter the ReNew Blog of the Year Competition. By competition’s close on February 3 we’d received over 20 entries, ranging from the very popular household retrofit blog, to blogs discussing climate change, new technology developments and the never ending household solar issues theme.
READ MORE »Sarah Robertson (Editor of ReNew’s sister magazine Sanctuary) and myself set about judging the blogs, although it was far too an enjoyable process to call it judging. The rise of blogs over the last ten years has helped ordinary people share their sustainability actions with the rest of the world. Reading this blog collection gave us an insight into what some very inspiring individuals are doing to reduce their carbon footprint.
We were looking for blogs about sustainable homes on a budget, energy efficiency, DIY projects or wider issues to do with climate change or environmental policy, pretty much what we cover each issue in ReNew.
Each blog was rated on regularity of posts, as the winner needed to be a prolific and committed blogger. Next was audience interaction, including whether the blog attracts a lot of comments or followers, or perhaps broadens its reach in the twittersphere. Most important of all was the value of the content, which was judged on the sustainability insights criteria, along with usefulness criteria (could you do this at home, we asked ourselves) and readability criteria.
Blogger extraordinaire
Coming up trumps in all areas was Gavin Webber in his blog The Greening of Gavin. Around for four years now, readers can track the journey that Gavin has taken to become more sustainable in all areas of his life. This blog has a lot of heart; it’s not just about the practical changes that Gavin has made at home with the installation of PVs, it’s also about why he’s made the sustainability shift in what he describes as a journey of highs and lows. Like many converts to sustainability in the last five years, his epiphany came after watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: “There was no way I was going to place more carbon into the atmosphere after knowing what I now knew,” says Gavin after watching the documentary.
Gavin’s blog is based on life at home in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, a place where residents might need a bit of inspiration to change the status quo. Posting 24 new articles in February alone, Gavin’s was one of the most active blogs we viewed, showing an absolute passion for sharing his sustainability journey. His blog includes podcast interviews by Gavin, videos and a range of entries on climate change, solar power at home, his home-built cob oven or trips with his family to CERES Environmental Park or the Sustainable Living Festival.
Gavin describes his audience as broad, from beginners to fully green or “basically anyone who wants to make a changes for the better in their lives towards a more sustainable lifestyle.”
“With nearly 1000 articles and over 50,000 pages views a month, I believe that it’s well read by a readership that spans the globe,” he says.
Gavin wins first prize in the ReNew Blog of the Year Competition, winning a pair of 110 watt solar panels courtesy of Low Energy Developments, valued at $500.
And the runner up…
In second place is Clare Menck, author of Small Steps For Sustainability. She receives an XL Woodgas Camp Stove plus a Solar LED Lantern with stove charger courtesy of Stickman Stoves, valued at $178.
Clare’s blog very simply describes what her household has been doing to live more sustainably, from nappy washing considerations to recent posts on a wheelie bin greywater system. Hailing from Perth, water saving features heavily in her blog, with that state remaining much drier than other parts of the country. She writes about the posters she’s placed in the toilet educating guests of her bucket flushing system, as well as her water use hierarchy which determines if she uses tap water (1st water) for a task, or greywater.
With water saving devalued thanks to the ease of desalination plants, it’s great to see one householder spreading the message that every drop counts. Also worth viewing are Clare’s passive heating and cooling measures, including last December’s Shading the House for Summer entry and September 2009′s Heat Barrier Curtain.
“The blog began because I struggle with change but my husband and I agreed changes to live more sustainably were necessary,” she says. “Adding one sustainable action each month worked for me and I wanted to share it in the hope of inspiring others who are not innovators or ‘early adopters’ to have a go at starting somewhere.”
Other great blogs
Ever popular are the sustainable building or retrofit blogs, which provide a wealth of information for anyone looking to renovate or build sustainably on a budget. These included gems such as Sean Manner’s blog A Green Tasmanian Renovation, a comprehensive guide to Sean’s work on an old house in Westbury. And Bogie Bush Build, based on Johnno and Dana’s new building adventures on a bush block provides a reality check on owner building. Chris Jensen also details his passion, fixing up a 108 year-old house, in his blog The Cruickshank Renovation.
Giving a commentary on climate change and renewable energy news is David Weddell’s blog Convenient Solutions, including some posts on electric cars, an area not making it into many of the blogs we viewed. Nigel Morris’ Solar Business blog also gives some pretty spot-on analysis and news about the solar industry.
Approaching solar from a householder’s point of view is Rich Bowden and Finn Peacock with their Solar Quotes blog, with apt discussion on correct panel placement and tips for householders seeking installers.
CSIRO’s Solar Technology blog Solar@CSIRO spreads the word on the institution’s projects such as solar cooling systems and virtual power stations.
Thanks to everyone who entered the competition, and to our competition sponsors, Low Energy Developments and Stickman Stoves
Top sustainability blogs
We received a fantastic response to our recent ReNew Blog of the Year Competition. Here is a brief summary of the top entries which gives an insight into what some very inspiring individuals are doing to reduce their carbon footprint. The blogs lend for great reading, so check them out. By Laura McLeod.
The Greening of Gavin http://www.greeningofgavin.com/
READ MORE »This is a well structured and visual blog from an individual who has an absolute passion for sharing his sustainability journey and inspiring others. Gavin does this by including videos, podcast interviews on climate change, solar power, his home-built cob oven and his making of cheese and soap
Turkey’s Nest http://turkeysnestmtglorious.blogspot.com/
This blog is an offshoot of Rose and Russell’s small cottage accommodation business with a sustainable philosophy, in the mountains just outside Brisbane. Supplementing the description of their eco-building project, which uses light earth and recycled materials, is promotion of a healthier more sustainable lifestyle through illustrating the joys of handmade and discussing the economics of recycling materials.
Small Steps for Sustainability http://smallstepsforsustainability.blogspot.com/
This blog is a description of the variety of changes that Clare’s household undertook in order to live more sustainability. The simple, practical and affordable ideas are a means for inspiration and easy to implement. Posts vary from water saving to recycling bottle tops for exciting children’s games.
Sustainaburbia http://sustainaburb.blogspot.com.au/
A hugely informative blog which demonstrates the ability to make the world more sustainable on a limited budget with limited DIY skills, mainly through behavioural change. It encourages us to embrace our inner creative; with posts ranging from the technicalities of PVs to making own apple juice, it gives practical instructions to help in a variety of ways.
A Green Tasmanian Renovation www.greentasreno.wordpress.com
As a comprehensive guide to work on a weatherboard house in Tasmania, this blog is enriched by a library of pictures and broken down room by room renovation posts. It is defined by its vastly informative posts on sustainable or recycled products, solar power and alternative hot water systems to name a few.
Cruickshank Renovation www.49cruikreno.blogspot.com
The product of a Sustainability consultant, this blog specifically focuses on the reality of green initiatives that were discovered as a sustainable renovation was attempted and completed. It discusses fencing, the difficulty in sourcing eco concrete and the uses of a thermal camera to improve insulation.
Solar Quotes http://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/
Containing a wealth of information and video guides, this blog is an analytical source that offers advice on purchasing solar electricity systems and solar power itself. As well as keeping people up to date on solar news and politics, it offers a free no obligation quote service.
Solar Business Services www.solarbusiness.com.au
Providing independent Australian PV industry news, information and commentary this blog distinctly focuses on being objective and unbiased. It features reports, a frequently asked question section and some ‘just for fun’ videos that are wholly entertaining.
Bogie Bush Build http://bogiebushbuild.blogspot.com/
Recording the trials and tribulations of John O’Brien’s building of a strawbale house in the Strathbogie Tabelands, the blog is an honest sharing of progress and hard work onsite. As well as breaking down the stages, detailed plans demonstrate the great vision and individuality behind the project.
Convenient Solutions http://convenientsolutions.blogspot.com
Utilizing charts, diagrams and video clips, this blog promotes ways to produce or save energy but also displays small pieces of climate science in a user-friendly way. Posts are filled with positive news on renewable energy or transport, information on government initiatives and examples of how to reduce carbon emission.
Solar@CSIRO http://csirosolarblog.com
The blog is a way to directly share information on solar energy technologies between scientists and readers. Aside from its information on large scale topics and detailed project descriptions, it makes solar science fun, interesting and easy to understand for beginners and experts alike.
Little Adelaide Kate www.littleadelaidekate.com
Little Adelaide Kate is centered on creative and ethical living. A humorous and crafty blog that shares Kate’s own experiences and promotes a variety of sustainable living options. It featuring posts on vegetarian cooking, social justice as well as her impending wedding and ability to source an ethical engagement ring.
Green Renters http://www.greenrenters.org/
This blog is the passionate product of a non profit organisation providing sustainability advice specifically for those living in rental accommodation. By creating an online community, the posts are full of tips, enthusiastic tutorials, product reviews and inspiring stories for renters.
Urban Environment News http://bruceboyes.info/urban-environment-news/
Urban Environment News assists people in urban and peri-urban areas to readily access the latest environment, sustainability and natural resource management news in one location. With a resource library and a ‘Discover China Section’ it is wholly informative in an interesting way.
Read more about ReNew blog of the year winner Gavin Webber here.
Tracking electricity use – New smart meter monitoring portal
Households will soon be able to track their electricity use online, thanks to a range of smart meter monitoring products. By Damien Moyse.
With smart meters installed in nearly half of Victorian households and the rest set to have them by the end of 2013, many have been wondering how they can benefit from the new technology. Smart meters capture far more detailed household energy use data than the old spinning-disk style accumulation meters they replace, but until now, households haven’t been able to tap into this information to better understand their electricity use.
READ MORE »Jemena, one of Victoria’s five distribution businesses, has jumped ahead of the pack and developed a new web portal that displays a customer’s electricity data online, enabling the household or small business to monitor their electricity consumption, along with a host of other features including a home energy assessment tool. Called Electricity Outlook, the portal is currently being trialled and is set to go live later this year.
Jemena has offered ATA members access to the trial, with many taking up the offer late last year. Participants need to live within Jemena’s distribution network area and currently have a smart meter installed under the Victorian Government rollout program. This is distinct from a bidirectional interval meter, installed to monitor output from a PV system, sometimes incorrectly referred to as a smart meter.
Monitoring benefits
Electricity usage data can be viewed in day, week, month, season or year formats, with both energy use and cost shown for each. Comparisons can be made against your suburb’s average for that time period and you can set yourself a target for energy reduction, for instance a 10% target, and see how you are tracking against that target.
The tariff comparison page allows you to input three different tariff offers, including the fixed charges, tariff rates and the time-of-use tariff structure. The web portal then takes your current electricity use data over the time period specified and provides an overall cost comparison between the different tariff types. It will then tell how much better (or worse) off you would be changing your retail product from your current one: e.g. on one tariff you might have saved $15 over the last month and another might have cost $5 more.
Electricity Outlook features
- See electricity consumption—as well as export for solar customers—up to midnight of the previous day
- View data over different time ranges and in half-hourly, hourly, daily or monthly intervals
- Track changes to see how energy use changes daily or seasonally
- Set and follow a percentage target for reducing energy use
Compare different tariff offers to determine which retail product would be the cheapest - Register to connect an In-Home Display (IHD) to view your electricity consumption data in real time, and eventually register other Zigbee Home Area Network devices. For more information refer to Smart meters: a rough guide in ReNew 111. Before buying an IHD, ATA recommends seeing what’s offered in coming months under their inclusion in the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET)
- Register for power outage and outage restoration notifications via SMS and email.
Smart meter products to expand
While Victoria is the only state with a government mandated smart meter rollout, smart meters are appearing in other states and territories. With the advent of the technology, a range of other products and services associated with smart meters, such as web portals, in-home displays and smart phone apps are beginning to emerge.
Another distributor, United Energy, is trialling a similar web portal for customers in their distribution network and at least two other Victorian distributors are following. With in-home displays soon to be subsidised in Victoria under the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET), the market for smart meter products and services should evolve considerably in 2012.
If you have questions regarding smart meters, web portals and other related products and services, or would like further information on the Jemena web portal trial, contact Alternative Technology Association Energy Policy Manager Damien Moyse via damien@ata.org.au.