Last week  I attended the All Energy conference in Melbourne. Running over 2 days, with over 30 conference sessions, just one was dedicated to energy efficiency.  Rob Murray Leach, head of the Energy Efficiency Council who chaired the session, kicked it off by saying that this was the most important session of the conference, as 65% of the world’s carbon reduction by 2020 to come from energy efficiency according to the International Energy Agency.

But is energy efficiency getting 65% of the press coverage, is it 65% of the conversation around 2020 carbon abatement targets? Clearly it isn’t.

There is a massive vacuum when it comes to awareness and understanding of the most cost effective way by far of reducing carbon emissions – energy efficiency. Have a conversation about reducing your carbon footprint, and the first thing to come up will be solar panels, not building controls.

Yet from an economic perspective energy efficiency is extraordinarily interesting in comparison with solar. At commercial electricity tariffs, without subsidies, even the cheapest solar PV system has a payback of over 25 years.

Cover the entire roof of a typical two or three storey office building with solar panels and you’ll reduce electricity usage at the site by around 15%, whilst spending about four times your annual electricity costs to buy the solar system. Yet energy efficiency could probably deliver that same 15% saving with a 2 to 3 year return on investment.

So why isn’t energy efficiency getting the attention it deserves?

As an industry we haven’t been effective in promoting energy efficiency. The recently formed Energy Efficiency Council, of which CarbonetiX is a member, is now taking up this challenge, but there is a long way to go.
Energy efficiency is not visible. The results of changes to the lights and the way the air conditioning is controlled are only visible to the person paying the much lower energy bills, and the person who championed the changes. Solar panels are visible to everyone.

The invisibility of energy efficiency is compounded by the fact that the good news stories aren’t told. They may not even be told to people in the building where the savings have been achieved, let alone to the wider public.
And energy efficiency, whilst it gets good savings, is not that easy to do, but there is a perception that it is easy. So organisations may undertake a DIY approach, with no training and no experience, and not achieve any noticeable savings. A classic DIY approach would be to spend $2,000 to get occupancy sensors fitted to control the lights in the toilets – I’m sorry but the savings from this simply won’t show up in your energy bills.

The problem arising from failed DIY efforts is that this then creates the perception that energy efficiency doesn’t work. And nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, energy efficiency does work, but you need to know what you are doing. Businesses don’t get the receptionist to do their tax return. A qualified, experienced accountant who  is normally contracted to do so. But when it comes to saving energy, all too often its assumed that an environmental officer or a facility maintenance officer can effectively do energy efficiency.

So, to raise the profile of energy efficiency, celebrate and promote the savings you achieve. Put up a plaque above reception showing how much you have saved, or a graph of how your energy use has gone down. Get a high NABERS rating and put the certificate in reception as well. Talk about what was done to use the savings. Get a case study done and circulate it amongst your staff. Then send the case study off to your local paper and get them to do a profile on what you have achieved.

And to get those savings, to make energy efficiency really work for you, get expert advice and guidance.

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.

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)

In Australia I see essentially two political choices for taking action on climate change. Vote for a party committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing an emissions trading scheme (ETS) or vote for a party not committed to an ETS and relying on ‘direct action’ to reduce carbon emissions. The major political parties are in essence providing these two choices to the Australian public – Labor for an ETS and the Coalition against an ETS. The two key minor, but still influential parties offer the same choice – Greens for an ETS and the Nationals against.

But what is an ETS and what is direct action? If people don’t understand the choices how are they to make an informed decision?

Direct Action

Direct action is essentially funding measures and initiatives through tax payer’s money that will reduce carbon emissions. Sounds simple enough, and of course voters can be led to believe that the government is taking control and doing something immediate to tackle Australia rising greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberal party is promoting direct action and refers to an ETS as a ‘great big tax’, but surely direct action could be termed the same – after all, direct action is still using tax payers’ money!

Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

What is an ETS and what advantage does it offer over direct action? The Department of Climate Change refers to its ETS policy as a Carbon Reduction Pollution Scheme (CPRS). An ETS is also commonly referred to as a cap and trade system or simply carbon emissions trading. What this means, is that the Government basically sets a cap or limit on the amount of pollution (carbon emissions) that can be emitted. This cap is sold to participants (the big polluters) in the form of carbon emission permits, which each are worth a specific amount of specified pollutant – in the context of tackling climate change, carbon dioxide. Holders of the permits are then allowed to trade the permits within each trading period set by the Government. The total amount of permits cannot exceed the cap, which over time is reduced by the Government, forcing the market to adjust and carbon emissions reductions to be achieved.

Essentially, participants of the trading scheme are allowed to pollute a certain amount within each period. If they exceed this amount (the cap), then they must purchase permits to allow them to pollute. So participants below the cap can choose to sell their permits to participants who require them. This puts a price on carbon pollution and if well designed, provides an incentive for participants to reduce their emissions.
The Labor Government came very close to passing an ETS, however it was blocked in the Senate twice in 2009. The Greens Party played a key part in the failed policy adoption of a ETS as they viewed the scheme as watered down, with a target to reduce Australia’s net carbon emissions by only 5 percent. To some degree I agree that the targets need to be much higher if Australia is to really move towards a low-carbon economy, however being too ambitious too early must have implications for our economy.

Labor is still committed to implementation of an ETS, but has postponed any commencement until 2013, claiming a divide on the issue due to a lack of consensus on climate change. They are offering direct action initiatives in the short-term, and a so called Citizens Assembly to form consensus for a future ETS. I get the feeling the lack of consensus is within the political realm, because I get the feeling most Australian’s want action on climate change, but just aren’t sure what the best action is.

Are you for an ETS or against?

I see the choice as simple – vote for a potential ETS or vote for no ETS. So what’s the advantage of an emissions trading scheme over direct action? An ETS is market-based, which from an economic perspective is more efficient and results in reducing carbon emissions at lowest cost. So the claim by the Liberal Party that an ETS is a ‘great big tax’ is not directly true. The problem lies in Government intervention in the form of subsidies and other exemptions, which are funded through tax payers’ money. Australia is a carbon emissions intensive nation, due to key sectors including the energy sector and aluminium smelter industry. An ETS without government intervention would mean these sectors would be the hardest hit, such that they would need to invest dramatically to improve energy efficiency and where above the cap, pay to pollute. This is argued to impact Australia’s global competiveness and will most likely increase the cost of commodities affected.

So, the argument against an ETS is that participants will have to spend money to reduce their carbon emissions and this expense will partly be passed on to consumers. While this may be true, at the end of the day, someone needs to foot the bill and if climate change is everyone’s problem then we should all be contributing.

Getting the balance right

The question is, do we contribute through direct government expenditure, or indirectly through a market-based scheme? Governments do not exactly have a good reputation for spending tax payers’ money efficiently so I would argue an ETS is the way to go. However, the success of an ETS really comes down to its overall design. Yes, we want to reduce emissions, but we don’t want to endanger Australia’s economic competitiveness. Like anything, it’s a balancing act, but if we get so bogged down in analysis paralysis, we’ll never achieve any real outcomes.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has released its scorecard for the forthcoming federal election, and will update it weekly. With only 3 weeks to go, the three major political parties have clearly put entirely different emphases on the importance of the world in which we live. Which best suits you?

As the ACF states: “Unfortunately, the scorecard shows that to date the ALP and the Coalition are failing on cutting pollution and protecting the environment. Check out how the environmental policies of each of the parties rate, and what work needs to be done…”

These have all been calculated from the publicly stated policies of the political parties. Some of the criterion for the results above included:

Question 1 – Pollution and a Clean Economy:

• Deliver science based greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets with the urgency required?
• Reduce fossil fuel subsidies and re-invest the proceeds into the clean energy economy?
• Embed environmental sustainability into decision making processes of government?

Question 2 – Clean Energy:

• Boost renewable energy at the scale needed by 2020?
• Put Australia on track to be a leader in energy efficiency in the developed world by 2020?

Question 3 – Sustainable Cities:

• Result in world leading, better planned, resource efficient and sustainable cities by 2020?
• Boost federal transport spending to achieve world class public and active transport systems for Australian cities and regional centers?

Question 4 – Healthy Environment:

• Build resilience of ecosystems to climate change, protect carbon stores and significantly reduce land use emissions?
• Bans the importation of illegally logged timber products and helps achieve effective forest protection in the Asia pacific?
• Protect the cultural and natural values of the Kimberley with Traditional Owner consent?

For more detail on how the four scores were assessed, go to http://www.acfonline.org.au/default.asp?section_id=374 .

As you decide what you’re going to use your vote for, consider the consequences of voting for each of these parties. Some cultures plan for sustainability many generations ahead – the Iroquoi up to seven generations. Can enough Australians see beyond the next election?