Rewiring Australia co-founder and chief scientist Saul Griffith is finally about to see his ambition to electrify suburbs around his home near Wollongong come to life.
On hand for the launch was federal minister for energy minister Chris Bowen, other luminaries and media.
The program launched on Tuesday is to electrify 500 homes around Griffith’s home town of Thirroul and nearby suburbs in a program collectively known as Postcode 2515.
It’s aim is to test his concept of radical electrification and how it could save money for consumers and carbon for the nation.
The end game is to roll this out for the rest of Australia’s households.
So far Griffiths has secured $5.4 million in contributions Australian Renewable Energy Agency and partnerships from Brighte and Endeavour Energy to work with his organisation Rewiring Australia.
But the bigger ambition is to secure $2.8 billion from the federal government over three years to electrify all the nation’s households. It would deliver a huge $3000 a year saving on average for each household, and a massive $1.7 trillion saving over all to 2050.
ARENA hopes the trial launched on Tuesday will show how households can be part of the solution to stabilise the grid.
“By undertaking electrification in a managed way, we can reduce the need to upgrade our electricity network and reduce costs for all electricity consumers,” ARENA chief executive Darren Miller said.
The project will involve installing efficient electric appliances and other consumer energy resources (CER) including heat pump space and water heaters, home batteries, and rooftop solar that will be optimised by a home energy management system (HEMS).
With luck the program will yield insights into consumer behaviour that could unlock ways to scale the program.
Miller said: “Flexible demand at a residential level is expected to be critical as homes electrify.”
Solar and wind were now the cheapest sources of new bulk electricity supply and that grid-scale innovations were now driving the transition, including increased use of grid-scale batteries.
There would soon be “unprecedented demand” for renewable energy over the next decade and there was a need to ensure the grid will be equipped to support this additional demand, Miller said.
Commercial and industrial property
Commercial and industrial property owners hope that their efforts to electrify their buildings will also yield great benefits.
There’s their own energy savings but also tenant benefits and the opportunity to enjoy the near 14 per cent returns promised by significant battery installations in some industrial premises.
These were all key focus issues at the Buildings as Batteries masterclass held by The Fifth Estate at the end of August and each will feature in a new publication soon, along with related issues such as the technology systems needed to manage this massive transition.
See details here.
Griffiths who brought his plan back to his home country of Australia after spending years doing similar work in the US has been dubbed “Dr Electrify” for his cut through concepts.
See an ABC television program on his work here
Meanwhile, Tim Forcey, who has created a storm with the 133,000 people who now follow his Facebook page My Efficient Electric Home, has just notched up his 40th event for the book tour to promote his new book My Efficient Electric Home Handbook.
And as we spoke to him this week Forcey revealed he’d just completed nine book tour events in nine days and expected to notch up 55 by the end of the year.
Locations included places such as Romsey and Gisborne in Victoria, to Wagga Wagga, Lithgow and Camden in New South Wales.
Shading is a problem for this apartment dweller living in in a forest of highrise. I need an affordable home battery. It is said 30%of domestic homes are in such a spot.