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News - page 1 of 8
Latest energy - 28/01/2012
Just got the electricity bill today for 8 Aquarius Crt, Portland. Over the last 97 days the house's Solar PV system made $660. Well on track for the $1,000 per year profit from export goal. This goal has now been revised to be $1,600 per year.
For a little more detail - in 97 days the house imported 346kWh ($155 of wind electricity), and sold 1,232kWh ($814) of solar energy.
If savings are also taken into account then the house as a whole is even better. That is, an average Victorian house uses about $1,600 for energy per year. 97 days is over $400. That would makes this house with the PV system over $1,000 better off over the 97 day period than an "average" Victorian home.
Bear in mind of course that the period was late Spring and early Summer, the lowest energy use period of the year for most homes.
Also what needs to be taken into account is interest on the extra capital outlay of making the house very efficient and then fitting the 3.4kW Solar PV system.
Approximately $31k was spent to allow this to happen. Most of this went into the double glazed windows. Interest on that $31k is $2,100 - which means the house has a genuine financial saving of $1,100 on today's electricity costs, which will grow as costs go up.
Not to mention three other significant factors.
* The house is always very comfortable.
* The house saves about 10t of CO2 per year.
* The house value will far outperform those "average" houses out there over time.
An investment well worth making!
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| Good results from an 8 Star house on a nice hot day - 04/01/2012
Just a quick post with results from the 8 Aquarius Crt house for Jan 2nd which had a top temperature of 41.4c today. This was the hottest day here (Portland, Victoria) since moving into the house in 2009.
Without any air-con, the house stayed at about 25c for most of the day before going up to 26.5c at 5pm before dropping again.
It was a great result on an extreme day, and compliments the house's Winter record of only having the heater used on four separate nights.
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| 2011 stats for 8 Aquarius Crt house - 04/01/2012
A 2011 update on our 8 Star all-electric house in Portland on the SW coast of Victoria.
First off - we have a strict rule of putting the heater on if the living room temp drops below 20c. There were four nights that we needed to do that this year. No artificial cooling has been required ever.
Each of those "heating nights" consumed an average of 2.5kWh from our heat pump (which is a 2.5kW Mitsubishi reverse cycle air-con), giving us a total heating/cooling energy consumption of 10.6kWh for 2011.
Actually the figure would have been lower but I forgot to turn off the hard-wired power meter to the heater, and the 0.1kWh phantom load per day from the meter running for a month or so kicked it up a few extra kWh.
To widen that to total energy use
* Consumed 2,900kWh *
* Produced 4,700kWh with solar PV **
* And again, used 10.6kWh for all the heating/cooling requirements.
I'm looking forward to fitting more energy monitoring/publishing equipment to be able to see and publish online which appliances are doing what. The house has got an ENVI and I am in the middle of our Bridge being expanded to the 10-channel version.
Cheers,
Peter
* "Consumed" means actually consumed - not just imported from the grid.
** Actually the PV system was only recently expanded from 1.44kW to 3.34kW, so the 4,700kWh is an estimation of what it WILL produce in a year, rather than what was produced in 2011 which was more like 2,000kWh.
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| PFiT Vs TFiT - A payback comparison - 02/09/2011
With a 60c Premium Feed-in Tariff (PFiT), these are my own expected paybacks on an average home (16kwh per day). Note that these figures also allow those “hidden” costs like smart meters, interest rates, etc. and are based on current purchase prices from the Portland Bulk Solar Project
• 1.5kW – 5.6 years
• 2.8kW – 5.1 years
• 5.0kW – 4.1 years
And with the new Transitionary Feed-in Tariff (TFiT) at 25c, it’s
• 1.5kW – 8.4 years
• 2.8kW – 10.8 years
• 5.0kW – 9.5 years
So the small systems really do become the most financially viable – especially when we consider that the majority of people are FAR more likely to step into solar if they can do it for less capital “risk” which the 1.5kW systems at $3,400 gives them compared to an extra $10k for a 5kW system.
Note that the 60c tariff usually has a retailer loading of 6 to 8c, and so should the 25c. So it would be safe to say the change to consumers will be approximately 66c to 31c.
Note also that because the purchase and sell costs of power are much closer, the benefits don’t favour houses becoming more energy efficient... A 50kWh per day house will have about the same solar performance as a 5kWh per day house. This is clearly another negative to the changes to TFiT.
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| Free Warrnambool workshop - 19/05/2011
Peter from Energised will be presenting a free energy saving workshop in Warrnambool on Thursday the 26 May.
The workshop details are:
Save Energy, Money and the Environment.
This theoretical and practical workshop will explain the principles of staying warm in winter and show how to install low cost options to save energy, costs and greenhouse gases.
Held at 7.30pm at the Archie Graham Centre – Dinning Room, Timor Street on the above dates. Registrations are essential and will be taken two weeks prior to the event. Please register by:
Telephone: Fiona - 5559 4847
Email: felliott@warrnambool.vic.gov.au
Post: Smart Living Workshops
PO Box 198
Warrnambool, VIC, 3280
Get to it!
Download flyer
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|  Solar rebate further reduced after June! - 09/05/2011
the Federal Govt has just announced a further drop in the solar rebate after June this year.
The rebate WAS going to go from about $5,000 to about $4,000 for a 1.5kW system. Now it will be about $3,000 for a 1.5kW system.
Even more reason to get your system before that date of June 30th!
This may also help people on our reserve list, as it may mean even more installers working on the project to increase their chances of getting the full rebate as well.
The Age report
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|  Series of Corangamite Workshops - 18/03/2011
I'll be presenting practical workshops on saving energy & money across the Corangamite Shire in April, thanks to the Corangamite Shire Council.
More details are on the downloadable flyer.
Download Flyer
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| 8 Aquarius Crt - Real-time Temperature Data - 28/02/2011
Automated data is now flowing from the 8 Aquarius Crt house's weatherstation.
The last time any articficial heating and/or cooling was used was October 12th, 2010.
Check back at different times of the day to see how the 8 Star house performs.
Real-time Temperature Data
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|  Sustainable Leving Festival - Melbourne - 31/01/2011
Climate change, together with increasing energy and water costs, demand a move to housing that captures water, generates clean energy and is zero carbon. What are the costs and payback times of achieving this in today’s market? Learn about the detailed planning and delivery of Australia’s first Zero Carbon Housing project at Cape Paterson. Listen to the builders and designers involved in the project and learn about the designs, costs and guidelines of building operationally
zero carbon housing projects of scale.
> Brendan Condon Director, Cape Paterson Ecovillage
> Peter Reefman Energised Homes builder & designer of zero carbon houses
> Tony O’Connell Director & builder, TS Constructions Wonthaggi
> Ashleigh Beaumont Director & designer, Beaumont Concepts, Wonthaggi
SAT 19 FEB
11 AM
BMW Edge,
Fed Square
Free Event
SLF Website
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| Solar for your home - Presentation - 29/01/2011
To anyone that's been to one of my "WhatIsIt-ShouldIGetIt-WhatShouldIGet-HowShouldIBuyIt?" Solar presentations, here's the slideshow - I Hope it's helpful.
Link to Presentation
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