The Energy-Freedom Home: how to wipe out electricity and gas bills in nine steps

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.

The order in which the changes