The City of Sydney expects to save $1.3 million a year by overhauling the energy and water performance of its major buildings.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the $6.9 million project would also be a big step to achieving the City’s ambitious carbon reduction targets.
“Retrofitting the City’s buildings with energy and water efficiency technologies will significantly reduce our costs – in fact, the project will pay for itself within six years,” she said.
“It will also cut 7000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year, taking the city’s overall emissions reductions from 6.8 per cent to 19.9 per cent – well on the way to our target of 70 per cent by 2030 (on 2006 levels),” she said in a statement.
Ms Moore said cities were responsible for 70 per cent of carbon emissions globally, so it was essential that firm action was taken to green offices and buildings.
The program will retrofit 46 of the City’s major buildings, including Town Hall House, the Woolworths building, Customs House, pool centres, community centres, libraries and car parks.
They will be fitted with energy efficient lighting, airconditioning and heating, centralised power management systems to reduce energy consumption by computers depending on activity, and voltage reduction units to slash electricity use in pumps, fans and lights.
Water-saving devices including aerated taps and shower heads, cistern modifiers in toilets and waterless urinals, will also be installed.
The retrofit will cut energy use by 7.5 million kilowatt hours a year – about the same amount of electricity used by a thousand homes – saving $840,000 a year.
Water consumption will fall by 61,360 kilo litres a year, saving $200,000 annually. . The retrofit will also reduce maintenance costs and avoid $160,000 in carbon pollution costs.
Contractor Origin Energy will design and install the systems and guarantee the reductions. The energy and water performance guarantees will be independently verified.
“This project shows what a local authority can achieve in delivering rapid, large- scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” said the city’s energy efficiency expert, Allan Jones.
