Green energy for Sydney |
Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP has announced the City of Sydney will review planning requirements to encourage the installation of co-gen and tri-gen Green Transformers.
Ms Moore said the City will work with plans by the developer of the former CUB site Frasers Property Group to incorporate a tri-gen Green Transformer to help provide sustainable power and to heat and cool their CUB precinct.
"The City will ensure Green Transformers will be integrated into urban renewal projects and installed into existing buildings.
"The benefits of low carbon electricity and greenhouse-free heating and cooling provided by the Green Transformers will be distributed throughout large parts of the city through a new underground green reticulation network facilitated by the City of Sydney.
"Green transformers function by using gas rather than coal to locally generate electricity while capturing the heat by-product to help cool and heat buildings,"Ms Moore said.
The City of Sydney will review its planning controls to ensure high quality, low emission Green Transformers can be installed without planning red tape.
The City of Sydneys draft Ecologically Sustainable Development policy proposes to actively recognise those buildings that undertake environmentally sustainable initiatives such as con-generation plants with a points system.
"Importantly, existing homes and businesses will get the opportunity to connect to a low-cost, low-carbon solution,"said Ms Moore.
Bruce Taper from Kinesis, the expert responsible for developing this aspect of Sustainable Sydney 2030 said in developing the Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy, the City first had to understand the implications of its own reduction targets.
"When we modeled what the City had committed itself to, it translated into a requirement to reduce current emissions by 70 per cent by 2030 regardless of the growth of the city,"Taper said.
"This is a massive challenge. No city in the world can point to a battle plan to achieve reductions at such a scale in such a short timeframe. With Sustainable Sydney 2030, Sydney now has a strategy to reduce emissions at a scale and pace that will change the global landscape of responding to the climate problem.
"The main technological component of Green Transformers is cogeneration, the simultaneous generation of electricity and harvesting of waste heat. Natural gas, a much cleaner fuel than coal, is used to generate electricity, emitting less CO2 for the same amount of electricity.
"Also, rather than wasting two thirds of the energy by blowing it into the atmosphere through large cooling towers at coal-fired power stations, Green Transformers use that energy to provide greenhouse-free heating and cooling to our homes and workplaces.
"This leads to an overall energy efficiency of approximately 85 per cent - at least twice as efficient as the best coal fired power station,"Taper said.
Combined with other supply and demand side policies in renewables, energy efficiency, and transport, Green Transformers will ensure the city emits 50 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 than it does now.
At the same time, Green Transformers will generate 70 per cent of the citys electricity supply. A major achievement of 2030 is that the individual greenhouse footprint of city residents will shrink from over 35 tonnes to under 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - a 66 per cent reduction.
The Sustainable Sydney 2030 exhibition which includes the Green Transformers proposal runs for six weeks at Customs House, from April 17 - May 30. For more information on the exhibition or the Sustainable Sydney 2030 vision, visit www.sydney2030.com.au.
The Sustainable Sydney 2030 team led by City of Sydney and SGS Economics and Planning includes: Simpson + Wilson Architecture and Urban Design; Kinesis; Strategic Economics; Australia Street Company; Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Projects; Neil Prosser; Geoff Anson Consulting; and Anagram. Project ideas developed by Lacoste Stevenson; Tonkin Zulaika Greer; Merrima Design; Tony Caro Architecture; Francis-Jones Morehen Thorpe; Johnson Pilton Walker; Hassell; Neeson Murcutt; Olsson Associates; Peter McGregor; James Mather Delaney Design and Bates Smart.
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