Brian Keating is the Manager, City Facilities at the City of Gosnells in WA. As a member of the Green Building Council of Australia's National Local Government Task Group, he recently discussed some of the practical projects that they are undertaking...
!. Setting up of a Revolving Energy Fund.(REF)
This was started with seed funding of $100,000 over two years to fund energy and water efficiency projects to City owned buildings. Savings go back into the fund for future initiatives (such as the two detailed below) Some of the initial projects carried out were lighting retrofits, installation of light sensors to public toilets and community halls and installation of water saving shower heads to changerooms at sporting facilities.
The City also subscribes to Planet Footprint, which gives regular reports on energy and water consumption across all City owned facilities. It also provides a Measures Report, which calculates energy and greenhouse gas savings. The report to June 2011 showed that 7 measures were implemented at a cost of $143, 205 which has resulted in annual financial savings of $147,330, saving 241,582 Kwh and emissions reductions of 3,043 tonnes of CO2.
These figures do not include the installation of the variable speed drives detailed below.
They do include the purchase of greenpower and the taking advantage of contestable power.
2.. Installation of Voltage Optmizers
The City has installed these devices at two of its major Facilities (The Agonis and Leisure World) at a cost of $82,000
Most buildings although designed for 220 volts input actually have more than this delivered via the mains supply and thus use more electricity than is necessary. The voltage optimizers keep the voltage input at 220 volts or below resulting in some spectacular energy savings. Savings are guaranteed by the installing company at a minimum of 10% and currently 13%+ is being saved. Annual power savings are running at $35,000 across the two buildings with an average payback period of 2.4 years.
3. Installation of Variable Speed Drives for Pool Pumps.
The City has installed a number of these devices at its public swimming pool, Leisure World at a cost of $70,000. They control the speed of the electric motors ensuring that the pumps do not run at full bore unnecessarily (most do - wasting a lot of power). This initiative has again resulted in some spectacular energy savings.
Annual power savings are estimated at $37,500 with a payback period of approximately 1.7 years. Greenhouse gas savings are approximately 152 tonnes.
