The Energy-Freedom Home: how to wipe out electricity and gas bills in nine steps
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About this ebook
The average Australian household spends over $2,000 a year on gas and electricity bills. Now, not only can you reduce those bills, but you can even wipe them out, while making your home more comfortable.
Paying for energy is the largest running cost that most home-owners are burdened with. And that’s no surprise — we use energy to heat our water, refrigerate our food and drink, run our heaters and air conditioners, light our homes at night, cook our meals, run our TVs, and charge our computers.There are simple, practical ways to reduce our demand for energy and to change where we get it from. There is already a quiet revolution under way as renewable energy and energy efficiency transform the way we generate and use electricity and gas. Over 1.4 million households in Australia now have rooftop solar — and, as a result, the costs of solar energy have plummeted, making it more accessible for the average home-owner. Yet there is much more that can be done to reduce our reliance on the electricity grid, and some significant improvements that can be made with relatively little effort.
The Energy-Freedom Home explains nine steps that can be taken — in any order — to become more energy efficient:
- replace old lights with LEDs
- stop draughts
- improve insulation
- upgrade windows
- use energy-efficient appliances
- install reverse-cycle systems
- use solar or heat-pump systems to heat your water
- monitor and control your energy use
- switch to solar.
PRAISE FOR BEYOND ZERO EMISSIONS
‘According to BZE, the average Australian household spends some $2400 a year on gas and electricity bills. The book explains the steps which can be taken, in any order, to reduce energy bills to almost zero … Very thorough. ’ The Cooma-Monaro Express
Beyond Zero Emissions
Beyond Zero Emissions Inc. (BZE) is a not-for-profit research and education organisation known for its work designing and advocating a zero-emission economy for Australia. Its goal is to transform Australia from a 19th-century fossil-fuel-based, emissions-intensive economy to a 21st-century renewable-energy-powered, clean-tech economy.
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The Energy-Freedom Home - Beyond Zero Emissions
Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3056
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom
First published by Scribe 2015
Copyright © Beyond Zero Emissions 2015
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.
Notes and errata for this book can be found at http://media.bze.org.au/tefh/
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Beyond Zero Emissions, author.
The Energy-Freedom Home: how to wipe out electricity and gas bills in nine steps / Beyond Zero Emissions.
9781925106718 (paperback)
9781925307238 (e-book)
1. Dwellings–Energy conservation–Australia. 2. Dwellings–Energy consumption–Australia. 3. Sustainable buildings–Australia. 4. Housing–Environmental aspects–Australia. 5. Renewable energy sources–Australia.
333.79630994
Beyond Zero Emissions would like to acknowledge Richard Keech as the primary author of this book.
scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.co.uk
Contents
Foreword by Stephen Bygrave
Introduction
Step 1. Lighting
Step 2. Draught Proofing
Step 3. Insulation
Step 4. Windows
Step 5. Appliances and Cooking
Step 6. Heating and Cooling
Step 7. Hot Water
Step 8. Energy Monitoring and Control
Step 9. Solar Power
Energy Freedom — Pulling It All Together
Appendix A. Energy-Freedom Principles and Concepts
Appendix B. Melbourne Timber Home
Appendix C. Newcastle Brick-veneer Home
Acknowledgements
About the Energy Freedom Initiative
About Beyond Zero Emissions
Foreword
Australians currently spend around $22 billion on home renovations each year. In addition, it’s estimated that half of all Australians plan to renovate their homes over the next four years. If you are reading this book, there’s a good chance that you are one of these people.
You will be thinking about design, and about what materials to use. You will be thinking about what appliances you want to install. You will be thinking about how to make your house into the best possible home. The most comfortable home. The home that everyone wants to live in. The home that everyone can live in.
The number of decisions to make when renovating can seem mind-boggling, and working your way through endless stories of shonky builders and costly fixes can make things even more stressful. No matter how modest or magnificent your plans, cost is always a consideration. And on top of the cost of the renovation, there’s the cost of running your home over the coming years.
Energy costs are rising, and will continue to rise. Much of the way that most homes are currently built and used is wasteful and inefficient, while much of our energy comes from fossil fuels that are expensive and that have an impact on the environment. Yet there are already over 1.4 million Australian homes with rooftop solar power, over 1.4 million households enjoying the benefits of making their own energy. Many are installing energy-efficient features and appliances, further improving their homes and reducing their energy bills.
This is Energy Freedom, a powerful and new approach to thinking about your home. If you follow all nine steps to Energy Freedom outlined in this book, your home can produce more energy than it consumes. Taking any of the nine steps will give you a more comfortable home, for a lower ongoing cost.
This book is aimed at helping home owners who are facing some of the biggest decisions about improving their homes, the most significant financial assets in their lives. This book is based on the Australian experience, though the concepts apply the world over. It is impossible for any book to be comprehensive on such a large topic, but this book describes many of the key techniques and technologies for making lower-energy homes, as well as pointing to a wealth of public sources of useful information.
I’m sure that everyone will get a lot from reading this book. We hope you enjoy it and the benefits of creating your Energy-Freedom home.
Dr Stephen Bygrave
CEO, Beyond Zero Emissions
Introduction
Figure 1. Efficient homes can be stylish and comfortable. (Dick Clarke/Envirotecture)
Paying for energy is the largest ongoing cost of running your home. We use energy to heat our water, refrigerate our food and drink, run our heaters and air conditioners, light our homes at night, cook our meals, run our TVs, and charge our computers.
The average Australian home spends about $2,400 per annum on gas and electricity combined. Between December 2008 and December 2013, retail gas prices rose 35 per cent, and electricity prices rose 61 per cent. In the same period, CPI rose only 13 per cent. Home energy prices continue to rise at well above the rate of inflation.
Retrofitting one’s home, whether through a dedicated renovation or through step-by-step actions over days, weeks, or years, is an opportunity to not only make your home more liveable, but also cheaper to run. It’s an opportunity to create an Energy-Freedom home.
An Energy-Freedom home can wipe out your energy bills, while being more comfortable and more resilient in the face of events such as heat waves and blackouts.
Wipe out energy costs. At a time when home energy costs are rising and uncertain, the steps to Energy Freedom described in this book allow existing home owners to largely eliminate their ongoing household energy expenses. This need not require much money up-front, as the steps are modular and flexible to your needs, but all investments in Energy Freedom will more than pay for themselves.
Resilience. We face an increasing threat from extreme heat waves as climate change starts to bite. Most of our homes are poorly equipped to cope, and indoor temperatures can reach unsafe levels during heat waves. The steps in this book make our homes more able to maintain a comfortable temperature during such events, even without power.
The time is now. There is already a quiet energy revolution under way as renewable energy and energy efficiency transform grid-based energy in both electricity and gas. Another three million Australian households are projected to install rooftop solar in the next five years. The amount of rooftop solar power installed worldwide has increased by a factor of 100 since the turn of the century. As a result, costs of solar have plummeted, making solar more accessible for the average home owner. Energy Freedom is part of the ongoing energy revolution. In Australia, total demand for electricity from the national grid has fallen every year since 2008.
What is Energy Freedom?
An Energy-Freedom home is one that uses solar power and zero net energy.
Energy Freedom means being not only a consumer of energy, but a producer, as you transform your existing home into an energy-efficient solar home. This means that your ongoing home energy costs fall to near zero in a home that’s more comfortable, smarter, and quieter. In addition, an Energy-Freedom home will help make you, the householder, an active participant in addressing climate change.
This book draws on the latest ideas and research, and aims to show a home owner how to achieve Energy Freedom at home. Energy Freedom can deliver the following benefits:
very low ongoing energy costs
eventual financial return on your investment
improved home resale value
higher levels of comfort
greater capacity to cope with extreme temperature conditions and blackouts
independence from fossil fuels
zero net emissions.
Energy Freedom and the grid. Energy Freedom doesn’t mean disconnecting from the electricity grid, though some home owners may have this in mind. In a zero-net-energy home, the role of the power grid shifts from being one of energy supply to being one of energy storage. In an Energy-Freedom home, the power grid serves as a big shared battery. When you have an Energy-Freedom home, the electricity company becomes your customer as much as you are their customer. Most homes in Australia can accomplish this by following the steps outlined in this book.
To an Energy-Freedom home, the power grid serves as a big shared rechargeable battery, sometimes providing energy and sometimes receiving energy.
There are three key principles to Energy Freedom: (1) be energy efficient, (2) harness solar power, and (3) eliminate the use of gas. If a householder adopts these three key principles, they can achieve Energy Freedom. Being energy efficient means reducing energy consumption and installing energy-efficient products and appliances. Harnessing solar power means installing rooftop solar. Eliminating the use of gas means switching from gas appliances for heating and cooking to high-efficiency electrical appliances. This last step is important. Energy Freedom challenges the notion that electricity is dirty and gas is clean. Gas isn’t the clean fuel it’s sometimes made out to be, is generally less efficient than electricity, and is increasingly expensive. (For more information on gas, see Appendix A.)
The three principles can be broken down into the nine steps of Energy Freedom: replace old lights with LEDs, stop draughts, improve insulation, upgrade windows, use energy-efficient appliances, install reverse-cycle systems, use solar or heat-pump systems to heat your water, monitor and control your energy use, and switch to solar.
Achieving Energy Freedom isn’t something you will do overnight, although, with sufficient motivation, it could be achieved in well under a year. Expect that, for most homes, it will happen in stages over a period of between three and seven years. Some of the initiatives in Energy Freedom are extremely cost-effective, and they can be implemented in the first year with very little cost to the home owner. This book will put you in the best position to choose what suits your needs and priorities. The main thing to remember is, you don’t have to do everything at once — getting on the path to Energy Freedom and staying there is the most important step of all.
The nine steps to Energy Freedom
Achieving Energy Freedom at home involves making improvements in nine key areas. Eight steps reduce home energy consumption, and the solar-power generation at Step 9 can then offset most or all of the energy consumption that remains.