There’s been a lot happening on the home energy front recently as standards get set to rise. And that’s big news for consumers and construction professionals.
For a start all Australian governments have now agreed to raise the bar on energy efficiency standards for new-build homes. It’s the first change to the National Construction Code in over a decade & requires new residential dwellings to hit 7-Stars on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme.
The changes focus on more efficient heating & cooling in a move predicted to shave $600 a year from home energy bills. It’s also expected to cut emissions by 78M tonnes & lower the cost of grid upgrades by $12.6B by 2050.
There’s a lot of fine print of course with a number of provisions voluntary for a while yet to allow the sector to adjust.
Some states aren’t waiting around. Victoria says it’s already set new standards while NSW just released its own 7 Star energy goal for new homes that also covers commercial buildings and high rise apartments—changes it says will mean new Western Sydney homeowners could save over $1K a year!
Naturally enough not everyone’s happy—some argue the changes go too far while others argue they don’t go far enough and allow too many exemptions. Home owners seem ready for change however, with a new snapshot from Schneider Electric showing 9 out of 10 people blame climate change for rising bills & over half who want their homes to become net zero.
Another new ‘Net Zero’ study also says Australia has a lot of work to do to meet its climate goals by 2050, saying the country needs 40 times the total renewable energy generation capacity on today’s national electricity market.
Our homes add something like 10% to greenhouse emissions so making them energy smart is, well, smart. They won’t get us to Net Zero by 2050 on their own of course, but the people that live in them will.
Cheers, John Fennell
Net Zero: https://acee.princeton.edu/rapidswitch/projects/net-zero-australia/
