Project features

Engaging with eTool at design stage

The design achieved an eTool gold medal with 89% savings in carbon emissions when compared to a residential benchmark in the same climate zone. eTool got involved in this project whilst in the design phase, which is the easiest and most cost effective point in the project to include sustainability features into the project.

Clean Electricity

A 5.5 kW Solar PV will produce more electricity than the house will use. Although the system has a high embodied carbon component (panels, inverter, frames, replacement), the substantially reduced “Operational Impact” due to the clean renewable energy input back into the grid, will offset this increased “Embodied Impact” many times over during its design life. Reducing the inverter down to 5kw but keeping the 5.5kw panels still enables the future householder to get the feed in tariff and get a large carbon credit with eTool LCA for generating clean electricity.

Solar Hot Water with Heat Pump boost

Hot water use accounts for only 8% of total operational energy as the system is using free solar thermal energy and heat pump boost during those cloudy days. When the system is not taking all necessary energy from the sun, the energy required to heat the water is minimised by transferring heat in the ambient air to the water using a heat pump. Heat pump system coefficient of performance is 2.7 and that means for every unit of electricity it will transfer 2.7 units of heat to the water. Estimated electricity running costs of $70 per year for hot water boosting.