Sydney's New Distributed Energy Plan

Sydney City has ambitious plans, led by tri and cogeneration specialist Allan Jones, formerly of Woking and London.

At our July monthly ATA meeting in Sydney, Allan spoke about his successes and his new role to help reduce Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030. Allan ranks as one of my heroes and to have him here, in my home town, is just excellent.

Australia is highly urbanised, and with the majority of people now living in cities, I recommend watching Allan's progress at the City of Sydney over the next few years, and let's share and learn from local successes that will drive energy innovation globally.

View Allan's page here. and my previous blog entry on Allan.

Australian innovation -Smart Fridge manages power

Sydney Central group of ATA (Alternative Technology Association) is a collection of volunteers like myself and, once a month, we invite speakers to discuss their work or ideas. Last night, Sam West of the Intelligent Energy Team of CSIRO talked about the "Smart Fridge" which consists of an intelligent bolt-on controller that can be fitted to new or existing fridges, cool rooms and cold stores. This is able to modify the compressor’s running schedule to improve the quality of green power supplied from Renewables, such as wind and solar. Sam added that "the Smart Fridges effectively transform a wind farm or solar field into a reliable, predictable base-load generator."

That's the first part - now he and the CSIRO are seeking interest from those who could take this concept to the next level so that the "Smart Fridge" becomes another key element in enabling Renewables to generate more of our power, and that's the goal! For more details on Sam and his "Smart Fridge" click here.