CarbonetiX

Victoria’s Solar Payback Drop Off

The Victorian Government has announced a reduction in the payments to all solar owners who feed surplus energy back into the grids. As of January 2012, a transitional rate of 25 cents will be given for each kilowatt.

This reduction of 35 cents (more than 50%) will reduce the benefits households with solar panels currently receive. The move has been a long time coming as the Victorian incentive structures surrounding solar panels moves to a more financially sustainable level.

The Minister for Energy and Resources, Michael O’Brien, has been quick to compare Victorian policy to other states.

“Unlike many other states, which have closed down all feed-in tariff schemes, Victoria’s TFIT will provide a fairer, more sustainable approach which reduces the boom/bust cycle for the industry,” said Mr O’Brien.

MAV – Victorian Local Government Guide to Reducing Carbon Emissions

The intent of the Guide is to provide councillors with an introduction to emissions reductions and to guide councils to make informed decisions regarding their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction options, obligations, and reporting requirements.

For more information on your obligations as well as savings opportunities available to your council, speak to a CarbonetiX staff member today.

Call 1800 311 763

Link: http://www.sustainability.mav.asn.au/content/upload/files/publications/The_Victorian_Local_Govt_Guide_to_Reducing_Carbon_Emissions.pdf

There are an increasing number of light suppliers offering energy saving lamps. But how can you be sure of how much light these lamps produce, and whether they will produce the same amount of light as the existing lights? For example will a new LED tube produce as much light as the existing fluorescent tubes, not only directly below the fitting but halfway between two fittings?

Photometric testing will give you the answers to these questions, but is expensive.

CarbonetiX has developed a testing set up “Light Comparisons at Low Cost”, that enables a fast, low cost comparison.

CarbonetiX director Bruce Rowse gives a presentation on our in-house lighting comparison unit, demonstrating how it works, its main features and its cost effectiveness compared to expensive photometric testing.

Get a quick feel for how your lights perform by sending us your existing light source and the one you are considering for testing and nominating the type of fitting you want to test undertaken in. The cost is just $100 (plus GST) per comparison, plus a $150 (plus GST) set up fee for each round of tests (eg if you sent through 3 LED tubes and a fluoro tube as a comparison cost would be 3x$100 + $150 = $450 (plus GST). You may also need to supply a fitting if we don’t have one in stock. Note that the cost of returning tested lamps to you is also additional.

Testing is best suited to linear fluorescent fixtures and fixtures with a depth of less than 200mm including downlights.

VIDEO: Lighting Efficiency Upgrades at Sunshine Library

The Sunshine Library has recently gone through a lighting upgrade. Works included delamping, replacement of halogen downlights with LED downlights and replacement of flourescent tubes with LED tubes. For most fittings that were upgraded energy savings are expected to be in the order of 50% to 75% per fitting.

I was out there last week and filmed Peter Fragopoulos explaining the changes that had been made.

LED technology is developing quickly, and its great to see its use becoming more widespread. Some of the advantages are:[bulletlist]

Large energy savings
Instant full brightness
No flicker
Longer life[/bulletlist]

Why aren’t we realising $130 billion in annual savings

A recent report from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said that although investors in the US stand to gain about $130 billion in savings annually** (with proportional savings available to Australian businesses) energy efficiency investment has been held back by certain institutional and managerial barriers.

The report (titled “Show Me The Money: Energy Efficiency Barriers and Opportunities”) identified the main barriers as:[bulletlist]

Upfront Capital Costs
Long Paybacks
Uncertainty over savings (NOT ANY MORE!)
Limited Capital Availability[/bulletlist]

Whilst the government and educational sectors, driven by public initiatives, are realising the high ROI energy efficiency can provide, demand from the commercial sector is relatively low. EDFs report attributes this to a combination of financial myopia and perceived uncertainty about the returns of such investment.

The manufacturing industry is also held back by the temporary disruptions energy efficiency retrofits would impose.

A typical commercial organisations spending upwards of $20,000 per year in electricity can achieve a 20% energy reduction in costs with a payback period of approximately four years. This would seemingly contradict the financial trepidations, particularly with rising electricity prices, yet most organisations do not fully accept such figures or wrongly believe that a reduction in energy is synonymous with a general downgrade in organisational functionality.

Energy efficiency has come a long way from “don’t forget to turn off the lights” both economically and technologically. But until managerial perceptions change and corporate commitment to energy reduction picks up, the potential gains available to the private sector will go unrealised.

** “Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy,” McKinsey & Company, July 2009

The full EPD report is available from: http://www.greenbiz.com/sites/default/files/Energy%20Efficiency%20Financing%20Barriers%20and%20Opportunities_July%202011.pdf

Is voltage reduction appropriate for office lighting?

Voltage reduction units on fluorescent lighting circuits are a proven energy saver. Savings of 20% to 30% are achieved, with around a 10% loss in light levels.

Voltage optimisation units are installed at the switchboard on lighting circuits, and work by supplying mains voltage to the lights when they start up, then dropping the voltage down to 190 to 200 volts 2 or 3 minutes later after the lights have largely warmed up. At a lower voltage magnetically or iron core ballested fluorescent ligths use less energy. If there are multiple light switching points on the voltage optimisation circuit, each time a new set of lights is switched on a good voltage optimisation unit should detect this and increase the voltage back to mains level so the lights just switched on can start. Then the voltage will drop back again after 2 or 3 minutes to the 190 to 200 volt level. When switching occurs light levels go up and down as the voltage reduction cuts in and out.

Voltage optimisation is a relatively low cost measure appropriate for areas with large banks of magnetically ballasted fluorescent lamps that are on for long periods of time. In this case the payback is fast. It doesn’t work on electronically ballasted fluorescent lights, including T5 lights.

Is voltage reduction appropriate for office lighting? Yes, it will work in large open plan office area, where the lights need to operate all day. But if there are small offices with lights that are frequently switched, or if occupancy sensors are used, then occupants may become annoyed with the change in light levels as the voltage reduction circuit cuts in and out. Additionally if the wiring diagrams are wrong, low voltage may inadvertently be supplied to other equipment that doesn’t appreciate the low voltage.

I once recommended voltage optimisation for a large office, mostly open plan, and 16 units were installed. Unfortunately the electrical wiring diagram wasn’t correct, so on installation the refrigeration compressor on the cool room supplying the staff canteen failed, as it was wired into a lighting circuit. With a lot of food wasted over the weekend and a $2,000 plus repair bill for the compressor the project didn’t get off to a good start. There were then issues with staff getting annoyed from changing light levels as lights were turned on and off in adjacent small offices and meeting rooms on the same lighting circuits. And over a period of three years four of the sixteen voltage optimisation units failed. So personally, as a result of this bad experience, I now tend to look for alternatives to voltage optimisation in offices.

On the other hand I know of a printer which installed voltage optimisation and has been very happy with the results.

Alternates that can be considered to voltage optimisation are delamping and using reflectors, which can lead to larger any savings and doesn’t have any of the switching concerns.

Car parks are often fitted with voltage optimisation equipment. New LED technologies, with inbuilt occupancy sensors, such as the Australian designed Chameleon, can however provide much larger energy savings with a reasonable payback.

VIDEO: “Lighting Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings”

Cleaner, Not Cooler – The Economist

This weeks Economist highlights the environmental draw-backs of substituting gas for coal in power generation globally:

“For global warming, though, gas is a mixed blessing. It produces less carbon dioxide for a unit of energy than coal or oil, so the climate will benefit to the degree that gas replaces either of those: it will mostly substitute for coal, though some oil too, especially if gas-powered trucking becomes widespread. But if gas is plentiful and cheap enough to replace carbon-rich coal, it will also be in a position to replace carbon-free nuclear and renewables, and in doing so more carbon dioxide will be emitted than would otherwise be the case. At the same time, the availability of a cheap and relatively green fuel may push up global energy consumption. A recently published scenario from the International Energy Agency projects that by 2035 the overall increase in energy use and the reduced use of nuclear and renewables in a gas-happy world would almost perfectly balance out the gains made by burning gas instead of coal.”

The Economist, Aug 6th 2011, Title: “Cleaner, Not Cooler”
http://www.economist.com/node/21525418

The takeaway for proponents of energy efficiency is that reducing energy use remains the most available and most effective means of lowering carbon emissions and is driven by individual organisations – not utility companies.

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