Beechworth Urban Landcare and Sustainability

Current Activity

• We’ve had several meetings in the interim period resulting in the first two fact sheets on ‘solar hot water’ and ‘heat pump hot water’ prepared by Klaus Baumgartel
• Our view is that solar hot water is a must on all new buildings and should be mandated by Indigo Shire. The higher cost of solar is fairly minor compared to the overall spend in a new house
• Retrofitting less greenhouse intensive hot water systems on existing houses is less definite. Heat pump hot waters are  relatively cheap and generally easy with current Victorian subsidies, and can reduce greenhouse by up to 60%

• These first two fact sheets can be included in the ‘folder for first homebuyers’ under design by the communications group (see the hot watersub section
• We were planning four more fact sheets as follows: ‘home heating’, ‘solar photovoltaic electricity’, ‘energy makeovers on existing housing’ and ‘design of new housing’. However the effort of researching and writing seems to fall to the core group and busy people are reluctant to sit around talking at meetings. So we are suggesting some new modes of operation for 2009.

Future Issues

• As noted above, the effort of clarification and distillation on ‘energy machines’ required to help the normal home owner is substantial and does not make sure that wise decisions are made.
• The ideal recipe for low-energy lifestyles can very quickly be undermined by short term ‘cheapest’ decisions, partisan advice from trades persons, and ineffective policies and decisions at local and state government levels.
• Given this, we feel that in 2009 the efforts of the ‘energy machines’ group could be best spent helping organize five night time lectures and information sessions for the Beechworth Community at large. These five sessions might form part of say nine lectures (one each month February to November) that Beechworth Sustainability would host in a ‘same day, time and venue’ sense to ensure a decent roll up from the town
• Our five lectures would be ‘best hot water’, ‘best PV electricity’, ‘best home heating’, ‘energy retrofits of existing houses’ and ‘design standards for all new houses’
• The energy machine group would then possibly move onto research into a town sized biomass-fuelled electricity generator that would consume town waste and forestry residues.

The inaugural meeting was attended by 59 people at the Beechworth Neighbourhood Centre. The central activity was within the four discussion groups who were each asked to highlight three foci for activity over the next two years. Somewhat unstated were the core aims of Beechworth Sustainability but they are broadly:

• Substantially reduce energy use and greenhouse emissions for the town and shire
• Focus firstly on households, secondly on institutions, thirdly on business and industry
• Implement things that have a real effect i.e. “walk the walk” NOT “talk the talk”

Legislation

• Concentrate on improving the design and implementation of local building regulations
• Prepare a targeted platform for the forthcoming local government elections and have an open forum where potential councillors can present their sustainability wares ( ‘Policies in the Pub’)
• Work with Indigo Council to make energy and greenhouse response more accessible and to foster a spirit of positive change

Energy Audits

• Ongoing series of energy saving tips in the local media along with a phone number for a free home audit
• Train local volunteers to do energy audits, perhaps focusing on the older housing stock and households who might need relief from high energy bills
• Set some audit targets (e.g. 100 houses in Beechworth in the first year) and from them develop a town-wide more strategic picture or a 20 year plan

Sustainable Food and Water

• Develop a food community and knowledge repository where the “things that work” can be fluently exchanged i.e. so each new person in the Shire does not have to learn everything from first principles
• Use the Neighbourhood Centre as a focus for sustainable food and water issues
• Develop a skills bank which lists people as a “first port of call” for practical issues e.g. watering systems, compost, best species to grow etc.

Energy Machines

• Work in the first year on private households and perhaps in second year branch out to larger scale issues e.g. local bio-electricity generator, small windfarm, sustainability fair.
• Fill the ongoing knowledge gap in household energy machines by evaluating options in a local Beechworth context (functionality, greenhouse saving, installed cost, local skills etc.) Start first with home hot water and develop our first fact sheet.
• Seek to rapidly improve the knowledge and skills of local tradespersons and home designers so that homeowners are not met with the traditional “never heard of that” response.

Cross Cutting Issues

By splitting into focused groups, the spaces between our silos of interest become equally important. How we deal with integration and cross cutting issues will be important so that we move forward in the same direction (lowering our greenhouse impact) without the cracks being bigger than the paving stones. First discussions highlighted some areas for the executive group to deal with as follows:

• A knowledge chasm exists on just about every issue and Beechworth Sustainability needs to provide good sound advice on greenhouse solutions. How to provide the advice is open but first off 1-2 page fact sheets on key issues are preferred.
• The legislation and energy machines group have a very strong overlap in the need to mandate and promote appropriate design standards with a limited set of functional machines
• Beechworth Sustainability needs a person and a phone number who is the first point of contact. In time we may need a venue and drop-in centre form which to promote our activities.

The Executive

From the floor, it was suggested and agreed that each action group would put forward two of its members to form an executive group to provide overall guidance and integration between the groups. Our executive group with contact emails is listed below. This group will develop the shape and activities of Beechworth Sustainability from now on. For those not able to attend the meeting last Wednesday night, an email to a group representative will get you in touch with future activities and meetings for your particular interest.

The current executive is:

• Legislation group: Luc Plowman, Seamus Foley
• Audit group: Robert Harrison, Sheree White
• Sustainabile Food and Water: Donna Page, Charlie Robinson
• Energy machines group: Analie Tibbits, Klaus Baumgartel

Fifteen people came and fifteen people spoke – lots of discussion, lots of ideas, and many opinions. For those who couldn’t make it, you missed a good one – these notes are for you. For those who were there, this is an attempt to capture the essence: four summaries, five main issues and five ideas for new directions next year.

What happened in 2008? What plans for 2009? Energy Machines Group

Since the last Roundtable, the group has met twice and developed the first two of a planned series of fact sheets for distribution and comment. Planning is also underway for a lecture series next year to further educate the group and reach the wider community. Preliminary work has started to entrepreneur broad-scale, low carbon electricity production for Indigo Shire in order to reduce emissions by 80%.

Audit Group

Free energy audits were offered to members of Beechworth Sustainability but so far there has been no response. Therefore the audit group is changing its strategy. Within the next month Robert Harris, a professional auditor, is will be running a training evening for the first six volunteers. This will be happening at Pheona Donaldson’s house where Pheona and Seamus are planning extensive renovations to reduce emissions. This group will then make a plan for further action.

Food and Water Group

The group has met several times and held two successful public events: the seed swap, at the Beechworth neighbourhood Centre in September, and a visit to Charlie and Faye Robinson’s sustainable patch in October. The group is planning a ‘knowledge bank’ for 2009 as well as more events.

Regulations Group

The group met twice and produced a draft of ‘guidelines for new homeowners in Beechworth’, designed to be distributed through local real estate agents. A question was sent to all candidates for the Shire Council elections and answers distributed to Beechworth Sustainability. The group plans to work with local council officers and become more closely acquainted with local and state laws concerning sustainability.

 

The five main topics of discussion

 

1. Is the structure and function of Beechworth Sustainability working?

Most people agreed that, with minor adjustments, the model is working okay. The lack of a formal structure is worth pursuing and we need to be patient with ourselves: ‘you have to walk before you can run’. There was a discussion about whether we should be Beechworth Sustainability Project, rather than Group which ended up in agreement that were neither. With a view to bringing the whole town along, we will be simply Beechworth Sustainability. There was a strong view that we need to think of ways to reach more people.

2. Do we need some communication protocols?

There was a concern expressed that some people would like to know more about what is going on in other groups, besides their own. There is also a lot of information that arrives on our collective doorstep that does not get spread around. Discussion circled around a ‘shopfront’ (maybe, one day; needs a big commitment), a corner of the BNC second-hand bookshop (to be explored) or a newsletter (see below). It was agreed that we need at least one backup to the main email list. Also agreed was that all messages to small groups will go to the big group as well and people can make a choice. Nobody needs to be locked in one group.

3. Do we want some social functions?

People agreed that it would be good to have some occasions just to enjoy each other’s company. Alan and Joan Baudinette have volunteered to kick off the year with a BYO barbeque at their place early next year. Setting the date for this led to a discussion about planning for the whole year (see below).

4. Where does political activism fit with Beechworth Sustainability?

We discussed the urgency of the need to reduce emissions and whether we should be more politically active. There seemed to be a range answers to this question. Yes we should, and there are many ways to do this as a private citizen (see below – links to Getup and others) Yes we are, in that members of Beechworth Sustainability have their voices heard in various influential forums at a local, state and national level (see below, advisory groups). But, for various reasons, not many people were keen on direct action in a political sense – marching, petitions or protest.

5. Are we staying true to main goals?

We revisited the main aim of Beechworth Sustainability, which is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% as soon as we can. Many voices from both the national and international scientific community agree that all else is secondary to this – all the energy expended on the chat, the bike riding, food swapping, newsletter writing and so on should be focussed on this main aim. It’s too easy to get caught up in peripherals.

 

The five ideas for new directions next year 1. Beechworth Sustainability (monthly, on-line) Newsletter

First issue is planned for February 2009. The newsletter will bring a lot of things together: news, events, links etc. There will be an editorial team, led by Roberta Baker, with representatives from each of the four activity groups.

2. One main goal for each group

Each activity group will work towards one major goal for the year, related to the main aim of reducing carbon emissions in Indigo Shire. These will ready for full-group discussion at the first Roundtable next year (probably in February).

3. More inter-group happenings

There are several projects already that are crossing group boundaries – such as the folder of fact sheets for new home-owners/builders in Beechworth. We will be looking for more like this. Reaching out to the town, we will organise a series of well-publicised lectures with wide public appeal. On the social side we will organise more byo get-togethers.

4. More political clout

The newsletter will alert members to political action happening around the country and provide links to relevant web-sites. At least six members of Beechworth Sustainability members will take their places on the newly formed Indigo Shire Environmental Advisory Committee and one member (Joan Simms) is representing Indigo Shire on the Upper Hume Sustainability Forum.

5. A calendar

To bring all this together, a strategic planning meeting will be held in January to draw up a calendar of events for 2009. Anyone interested in being part of this planning please keep a watch on your email over the summer break.

Although it’s a bit early, Beechworth Sustainability hopes we all enjoy the festive season and hope we all put people and good times before more unnecessary stuff. We’ll get going again next February so we’ see you then … and thanks everyone for a very good year.

Ali

Choosing a solar hot water unit can be a confusing experience for the average consumer. There are many types available and many traps for the unwary. This fact sheet hopes aims to provide some basic information to assist.

Solar hot water uses the energy of the sun to heat domestic hot water. They can provide up to 85% of domestic hot water energy over the whole year. All systems require an auxiliary energy source during winter, this typically being an electric immersion heater in this region (where gas is available this is a better option). Solar hot water is probably the most cost effective way of reducing energy consumption in the home.

There are two main types of solar hot water system – compact and pumped systems. There are also two main types of absorbers – flat panel and vacuum tube. The flat panel absorber can run directly with water or, as is more common these days, with a mixture of antifreeze and corrosion inhibitor which heats the water via a heat exchange system. This avoids problems with frosts damaging the system and extends the life of the unit considerably.

Compact Systems (Passive Systems) These are also known as thermosiphon systens and consist of a tank for the heated water, a solar collector and the connecting pipes all pre-mounted in a frame. The tank needs to be positioned higher than the collector panel as the hot water will rise to the tank without assistance. This requires no pumps.

This is the most efficient system as it requires the least amount of electricity either for pumping or for auxiliary heating. As the weight of the entire unit including the 300litres of water may require reinforcement of the roof, this needs to be considered, especially if retrofitting. It is probably the easiest system to retrofit if this is not an issue.

Pumped Systems (Active Systems) Active systems require pumping as the tank and auxiliary heating system is remote (an lower than) the collector system. This pumping requires energy and can reduce the potential energy savings by 10-20%. If you include a solar powered pump this eliminates this but increases the cost considerably.

Types of Thermal Collector

Flat Plate Collector A flat plate collector consists of a thin absorber sheet (of thermally stable polymers, aluminium, steel or copper, to which a black or selective coating is applied) backed by a grid or coil of fluid tubing and placed in an insulated casing with a glass or polycarbonate cover. Fluid is circulated, using either mains or solar electricity, through the tubing to remove the heat from the absorber and to transport it to an insulated water tank, sometimes directly or otherwise to a heat exchanger or to some other device for using the heated fluid.

Evacuated Tube Collector Evacuated tube collectors are made of a series of modular tubes, mounted in parallel, whose number can be added to or reduced as hot water delivery needs change. This type of collector consists of rows of parallel transparent glass tubes, each of which contains an absorber tube (in place of the absorber plate to which metal tubes are attached in a flatplate collector). The tubes are covered with a special light-modulating coating. In an evacuated tube collector, sunlight passing through an outer glass tube heats the absorber tube contained within it. The absorber can either consist of copper (glass-metal) or specially-coated glass tubing (glass-glass). The glass-metal evacuated tubes are typically sealed at the manifold end, and the absorber is actually sealed in the vacuum, thus the fact that the absorber and heat pipe are dissimilar metals creates no corrosion problems. The better quality systems use foam insulation in the manifold. low iron glass is used in the higher quality evacuated tubes manufacture.

The quality of the tubes can vary considerably. Cheaper boro-silicate glass tubes can shatter during extreme heat and can also have long term problems with corrosion.

Evacuated tube collectors heat to higher temperatures, with some models providing considerably more solar yield per square metre than flat panels. However, they are more expensive and fragile than flat panels. Evacuated heat tubes perform better than flat plate collectors in cold climates because they only rely on the light they receive and not the outside temperature. The high stagnation temperatures can cause antifreeze to break bown, so careful consideration must be used if selecting this type of system in temperate climates.Tubes come in different levels of quality so the different kinds have to be examined as well. High quality units can efficiently absorb diffuse solar radiation present in cloudy conditions and are unaffected by wind. They also have the same performance in similar light conditions summer and winter.

Solar Hot Water Positives and Negatives

Positives

1. They provide a huge energy saving over the course of a year as the ‘free’ solar heat does all the work.
2. They are robust and require little maintenance
3. During warmer weather there is the option of turning off the auxiliary heating (but not the pumps in active systems. Timeclocks help almost carefree management.
4. The technology works well and is proven for more than 50 years

Negatives

1. They are costly and have a moderate pay back period (this does not include government subsidies or rebates which would improve this considerably)
2. They are costly to install and may require plumbing and reinforcing work, especially if retrofitted
3. Care needs to be taken in choosing the correct type for the climate of the particular region
4. If choosing vacuum tube units, care must be taken to select quality products to avoid high maintenance costs in the future. The ‘best’ is the best and the cheapest will probably bring problems

Questions to Ask

1. Where was the unit made? There is some doubt about the quality of cheap Chinese units (which sell in China for 20% of the cost of a local unit)
2. Is the unit under consideration suitable for the climatic conditions? Factors such as frosts may mean a system with antifreeze and a heat exchanger need to be used.
3. If an active (pumping) system is being considered, what is the reduction in energy savings?
4. If retrofitting, is there a need for reinforcing of the roof to be able to support the unit?
5. What is the optimum angle (related to the latitude of the location) and can this be achieved? Will this require an extra structure that can cost $500 more?
6. How often does the unit require servicing (5 years ??) and are parts and servicing skills locally available?
7. Can installer fit a timeclock with manual over-ride, for winter electricity boost?

Key Statistics for a 300 litre Unit

Item Value Comment Electricity Use 7 kWh/day for four cold months =840 kWh per year versus more than 5,000 kWh for all-electric hot water Requires a time clock and manual over-ride to boost hot water for winter bathing times Greenhouse Impact 1 tonne per year versus 6-7 tonnes per year for all electric hot water. Ballpark Price Ballpark Price $3,000-$5000 net of subsidies and installation Should be mandated on all new houses in Indigo Shire

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared by Klaus Baumgartel Beechworth Sustainability, Energy Machines GroupTuesday, November 11, 2008

A heat pump is a device that moves heat from a source location to a sink location. Most heat pump technologies move heat from low temperature heat source to a higher temperature heat sink. Common examples are refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners an reverse cycle heater cooler combinations.

All matter above absolute zero (appox –273C) contains energy. This can be captured by using the energy present to evaporate a refrigerant (same principle as why evaporating sweat cools you down by taking heat away). This can then be recovered in part by condensing the vapour back to a liquid form by a compressor, the heat being used to heat and the liquid then being recycled through the system.

Because of the compression stage, heat pumps always need electricity to run. They can, however provide a much greater dividend for the power expended than using it for straight heating. In using the heat for hot water a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of between 3 and 4 can be achieved (using an air source system on a mild day) versus a COP of 1 for a straight electric immersion heater i.e. 1 kW of electricity usage gives 3-4 kW of heat in hot water using a heat pump system. COPs tend to get lower as the outside temperature goes down (and the differential to the target temperature increases). However a system developed in Japan has a COP of 3 at an outside temperature of –20C.

COP must not be confused with efficiency. Some sellers will tell you the unit has an efficiency of 300%. This is actually the COP converted to percentages. The technical ‘efficiency’ of the unit itself relates to the refrigerant used, the efficiency of the compressor and the design in relation to expected temperature conditions.

Most heat pumps used by the average consumer will be air-sourced. They will work best when the temperature is higher than when it is colder. The differential between the outside temperature and the target temperature (typically 50-60C for hot water) is what determines the actual COP. The COP drops back to 1 (same as the immersion heater) at –18C. Obviously the heat pump works better in the warmer weather, something it shares with solar hot water.

There are more sophisticated systems that use underground pipes that provide a more stable input temperature but these are expensive and outside the scope of this fact sheet

Positives

1. Significant improvement over existing electric hot water system. This is not as significant if you have gas.
2. Can often plug into existing plumbing with minimal installation modifications required.

Negatives

1. Always needs electricity to run.
2. Are more efficient if the outside air temperature is high than if it is low. At around –18C, the efficiency approaches 1, same as for an immersion heater.
3. Need to ask what the refrigerants chemical is as some are very high impact greenhouse gases in their own right
4. Do require servicing every 3 (???) years

Questions to ask

1. What is the COP of the unit
2. What is the COP at sub zero temperatures (as the region gets in winter)
3. What is the refrigerant used and is it a greenhouse gas in its own right
4. How often does the unit need to be serviced and/or recharged with refrigerant
5. Can installer fit a 24 hour time clock with manual over-ride

Key Statistics for a 300 litre Unit

Item Value Comment Electricity Use 4 kWh/day versus 12-15 kWh per day for a traditional electric immersion hot water heater Can probably be halved by using a timeclock and altering behaviour eg shower when water is hot and do clothes washing in cold water Greenhouse Impact 5 kg of CO2 per day or 1.8 tonnes per year versus 6-7 tonnes per year for all electric hot water The biggest greenhouse impact a household can have is to ditch the old electric hot water. Government subsidy now makes it very cheap. Ballpark Price $1,000-$2000 net of subsidies and installation for a simple replacement A simple one-for-one replacement of an electric hot water can cost less than $700 net of subsidies

Prepared by Klaus Baumgartel Beechworth Sustainability, Energy Machines Group Tuesday, November 11, 2008