It looks like a “normal” home. There’s nothing to give away that you’re looking at a house that has no emissions – that’s right ZERO emissions. The CSIRO have worked in conjunction with Henley Homes and a consortium of partners to develop and build an average Australian house that will have a positive effect on the environment, and best all, for an average house-price.
The average Australian house these days has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a double garage. The Zero Emission House (ZEH) has all this and something far more interesting – its own Home Energy Management System (HEMS). The system was developed by La Trobe University in partnership with CSIRO to track energy and water use and supply in the home.
The HEMS is displayed on a touch screen located in a central area of the house. It graphically shows the house, room by room, and additionally gives each room a colour coding according to its current energy usage – green for low energy consumption and red for high consumption.
This allows the occupants to see at-a-glance just how much energy is being used in different areas and zones of the house. It can show usage in other ways too, the energy usage by individual appliances such as lighting and air-conditioning and other appliances is available. HEMS can also provide customised reports of power consumption for different timescales, household appliances and zones and even transmit this information in regular updates to the householder’s mobile phone or make it available via the internet.
What’s more, the system is linked to the on-site weather systems and tracks the energy being generated by the rooftop solar panels, as well the local weather conditions and compares all this against energy usage. It can also estimate results, including the costs, of various – energy-saving or otherwise – options such as reducing stand-by power or changing heating, cooling or lighting systems. All designed with flexibility to allow future technology and innovations, such as electric vehicle integration, to be added.
But what makes this house so amazing is that you can build it now, for not much more than the standard price of a new home. The key is in the planning. The ZEH project has developed a House Design Tool that can help achieve 70-80% reductions in energy demand. The key consideration for this is house orientation and getting correct positioning of the building on the block. Other considerations that greatly impact energy usage are glazing and insulation. Judicious choices of these three areas alone can turn a six-star energy rated house into an eight-star house resulting in 70% reduction in energy and 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Fast Facts:
~ As a rough guide a six-star house could cost around $250,000 to build, and only an additional $20,000 will get you an eight-star house. Add a rooftop solar PV array for another $20,000 and you have a zero-emission home, with no energy usage and no greenhouse gas emissions.
~ All Australian houses must be built to a five-star energy rating, with an increase to six stars planned for introduction no later than May 2011.
~ Energy use in buildings is responsible for 26 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is the primary cause of peak energy demand on the electricity network. Nearly half of these emissions are produced from energy used in homes
~ CSIRO scientists estimate that if all the new housing built in Australia between 2011 and 2020 were zero emission houses, 63 million tons of GHG emissions would be saved. This would be equivalent to
- taking all of Australia’s private cars off the road for 2 years and 237 days; or
- closing all Australia’s power stations for up to 100 days.
The flagship Zero Emission House, which is suited to the Australian climate, lifestyle and targeted to the volume housing market, has been built 30 kilometres north of Melbourne CBD, in the community of Laurimar, Victoria and is open to the public until September 2010. After that, the display house will become a laboratory and will be rented out to a “normal” Australian family and evaluated against other homes within the same estate. Volunteers required!
Street address: 40 Mable Street, Laurimar in Doreen, Victoria
Open for inspection: Saturday and Sunday, noon-4pm, or by appointment
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The flagship Zero Emission House, which is suited to the Australian climate, lifestyle and targeted to the volume housing market, has been built 30 kilometres north of Melbourne CBD, in the community of Laurimar, Victoria and is open to the public until September 2010. After that, the display house will become a laboratory and will be rented out to a “normal” Australian family and evaluated against other homes within the same estate. Volunteers required!
