Energy Audit Report for Cooper Plains

18 Aylton Street, Cooper Plains

Table of Contents

Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Scope

1.3 Methodology

1.4 Source of Information and Assumptions

1.4.1 Electricity Bill

1.4.2 Multifunction Power Readings

1.4.3 Lux Meter Readings

1.44 Manufacturer Specifications

1.4.5 Estimated Weekly Run- Times

1.5 Site Issues

2 THE SITE

2.1 General Characteristic of the Site

2.2 General Description of Main Appliances

2.2.1 White goods

2.2.2 Hot Water

2.2.3 Lighting and Fans

2.2.4 Small Household Appliances

3. Energy Consumptions

3.1 Overall consumptions

3.2 Seasonal changes of energy consumption

3.3 Energy usage Assumption

3.4 Appliances

4. Audit measurement and calculations

4.1 Lighting and fans

4.2 White goods

4.3 Small Household appliances

4.4 Standby power

5. Energy management opportunities

5.1 LED Lighting solutions

5.2 Automated Lighting control systems

5.3 Solar Powered Energy System

6. Recommendations

6.1 Recommendation for Hot Water

6.2 Recommendation for Heating and Cooling

6.3 Recommendation for Lighting

6.4 Recommendation for Solar

6.5 White Goods

7. Conclusion

8. References

9. Appendix -Manufacturer Specification

Introduction

1.1 Background

The audit assignment on energy was taken up in line with  the course ‘Energy Efficiency’. In order to save energy, the audit was conducted at our premises “18 Ayton Street, Cooper Plains”, housing four tenants on co- sharing basis. The Owner of the house does not stay with us. In connection with the review, the actual measurements were taken during the period from mid-March to April 2019.  The purpose of the review is to observe the actual consumption of energy for daily and weekly periods and estimating for half yearly and full year periods in respect of the above residential unit and also monitoring the performance of every appliance used in the residence. The details have been collected in this regard and analyzed for the trend energy consumption .It also gave me an idea about the energy requirement. After review of consumption, We are able to suggest alternative methods so that it would reduce the energy cost in the future.

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1.2 Scope

The report not only covers the energy usage at our house but also reviews the design and utilization of the electrical appliances that are being used now in the house. A few appliances are associated with the Mains, for example, lights, fans, stove, water heater etc. Several assumptions and estimates were made to calculate the energy based on the location of power points. This report also recommends about the energy saving opportunities.

1.3 Methodology

The trend in consumption of electricity was taken into account to estimate the energy consumption of appliances during different seasons. Survey was done regarding the consumption pattern of different residents during each season. The lighting of  house is measured with the help of the instrument, Lux Meter. All the data are evaluated for the energy usage and cost savings. Multifunction Power Meter was also used power measurement purpose in this assignment

1.4 Source of Information and Assumptions

The sources of data as well as assumptions for the energy audit are listed below:

1.4.1 Electricity Bill

The actual energy charges paid for the  last quarter was taken from the bill given by  the owner.  It is noted that an  amount of AUD.619.01 was  spent on electricity bill for the  total usage  of 1735 kwh for  the  quarter ending  Feb2019  .Based on this, daily usage was arrived at  19.3 kwh. The current quarter bill amount  is  compared with that of   other quarters for usage and shown below.

The bill tariff of the previous quarter is given below:

Details (24/11/2018 to 21/02/2019)                          Usage                      Rate (EX.GST)            

Tariff peak only (24/11-31/12)                                455 kWh                       $0.312021

Tariff peak only (1/1-21/2)                                      592.57 kWh                  $0.294885                           

Tariff controlled supply (24/11-31/12)                    295 kWh                       $0.261289

Tariff controlled supply (1/1-21/2)                          392.27 kWh                  $0.278412

Daily supply charge                                                38 days                        $1.278000

Daily supply charge                                                52Days                        $1.297000

1.4.2 Multifunction Power Readings

MS-6115 Multifunction Power Meter was used to take readings from all the appliances.

1.4.3 Lux Meter Readings

A Lux meter was used to  study the level of luminance in all the rooms. After that the result was compared with normal luminance level.

1.44 Manufacturer Specifications

 The specifications  given by the manufacturers in the appliances were  utilized to confirm the measurement results. Further, it also facilitated to ensure the accuracy of functioning of  the Power Meter. The LUX Meter readings were compared with the Manufacturer’s specifications for various lighting source    to know the efficiency of the lights in the house.

1.4.5 Estimated Weekly Run- Times

A study  of weekly consumption  was done  for all appliances and the details of the study are furnished  below.

The usage timing of various common appliances among 4 tenants in our site have been recorded. Also tenants provided us with the personal timing consumption of table lamp, Phone charger and laptop charger.

*   Refrigerator is a common appliance and running 7 days a week for 24 hours

1.5 Site Issues

Measurement could  not  be  taken inside the rooms of  three Tenants due to privacy reason. However, they cooperated while taking survey in other common areas and also provided us with personal consumption timing.

2. THE SITE

The site layout is as below

2.1 General Characteristic of the Site

Dining cum Kitchen, Laundry room, Toilet and bathroom are shared services among 4 tenants. Each room of tenant consists of Study table, bed, ceiling fan, light and study lamp

2.2 General Description of Main Appliances

The energy consuming devices in the house were listed and analyzed under the following categories

• White goods
• Hot water heater
• Lighting and fan
• Small house hold appliances

2.2.1 White goods 

White goods are devices requiring heavy power when compared with other devices in the house (.e.g.) Refrigerator, Air conditioner, washing machine etc. Power consumption for white goods appliances are calculated based on the manufacturers’ power specification as shown below.

2.2.2 Hot Water

The power supply for hot water heater shall be directly from the mains. The mains shall be 240v AC, 50 Hz. The Switch board also consists of an isolating switch

2.2.3 Lighting and Fans

The entire house is fitted with CFL bulbs excluding table lamps that are fitted with halogen bulbs. Every bedroom has a 3-blade ceiling fan except common area. There is no air conditioner or heater used in the entire house.

2.2.4 Small Household Appliances

The other appliances are listed below and only laptop charger draws standby power even when not in use.

Due to privacy issues the laptop and mobile specifications were not obtained from other Tenants and hence the assumption was made based on Room 2.

3. Energy Consumptions

3.1 Overall consumptions 

The weekly energy consumption was calculated.

The details are as follows

*-    The hot water heater was inaccessible in the site. The energy consumption was made for the hot water heater based on the following calculation

Average daily consumption     =   19.3 kWh (Refer 1.4.1)

Average weekly consumption = 19.3*7= 135.1 kWh

Weekly energy consumption for the remaining categories=114.45 kWh

Per assumption, the energy usage for water heater = 20.855 kWh

3.2 Seasonal changes of energy consumption

Almost all the appliances used in the house have a steady utilization throughout the year. However, the energy utilization doesn’t vary much in different seasons of the year. The usage of the light in the house will be higher during the winter month because of less hours of sunlight and there maybe chances of increase in energy consumption. Similarly, there will be drop in fan energy usage during winter month.

Similarly, the water heater energy consumption will be high during the winter season due to low ambient temperature affecting the water temperature from the main supply.

3.3 Energy usage Assumption:

The following assumptions were made

• The difficulty in accessing few electrical points such as heaters made us back calculate the power consumption
• The privacy of tenants hindered us directly measuring the power consumptions and made us rely on the consumption timing data provided by the tenants
• The refrigerator shall always be connected to power

3.4 Appliances

The energy usage of all the appliances in my house were verified for design and utilization purpose to find the efficiency of the appliances to save on energy.

4. Audit measurement and calculations

4.1 Lighting and fans

The lighting solutions in the house were measured using Lux measurement device and energy consumptions of lighting and fans in the house is presented below.

The lighting solutions are measured with the help of Lux meter where ever possible surface is there.

The recommended Lux level is obtained from the AS/NZS1680 Series to provide minimum level of the particular task (service, 2019).

In spite of the fact that the guide depends for the most part on work environment of lighting arrangements, however, they were extended to domestic lighting calculations

The lighting in rooms, kitchen, restrooms and hallway are at par or even higher compared with the recommended lux levels

The number of daylight hour’s data was taken from the  Australia‘s official weather website-Government of bureau of metrology (Australia, 2019)

The weekly hours of sunlight was calculated as follows

Average sunshine in April = 8 (hours)

Average sunshine in June =7(hours) =12.5% hours of sunshine less than April.

Average sunshine in November =9 (hours) =12.5% hours of sunshine more than April.

• The summer usage shall be 12.5% lesser for the lights and the winter usage shall be 12.5% shall be higher respectively
• All the lights in the site were taken into account for power consumption
• The power consumption for ceiling fan was considered only for summer season as it is assumed that no ceiling fan was used in winter season

4.2 White goods

The energy consumption of all the white goods is not expected to fluctuate over different seasons because the usage need also doesn’t fluctuate along with the seasons.

The assumptions are as follows

• The refrigerator shall be in working condition all the time – 24 hours and 7 days
• Microwave and washing machine are need based as this is the shared facility

4.3  Small Household appliances

The energy consumption of the small household appliances is shown below.

The usage of Kettle, iron and laptop charger was measured using power meter. For instance, the usage of Kettle was for 2.5 hours per week.

For the measurement of the kettle the energy reading of 0.3kWh was obtained over 5 minutes to boil the 1.5 liter of water. The energy reading was 3.6 kWh for an hour. The weekly usage was obtained by multiplying consumption hours and power consumption. The same was done for iron and laptop charger also.

In our residence, all are using Samsung mobile phones and hence the manufacture’s specification of power consumption was taken into consideration for the calculation .The maximum battery capacity of 3500 mAh. The basic assumption is such that all phones need to be charged from Zero to full daily. This accounts to 0.0175kWh. This is then equated for 4 residents and 7 days in a week to get the consumption of device

The laptop shows fluctuation while measuring on the power meter using more and less application. To calculate the energy consumption per week it is further multiplied with calculated energy values (0.06) and weekly usage (330 hours)

4.4 Standby power

Some of appliances draw power while not in use. They are known as standby power. It was made evident with measurement of various devices. They are not too big in terms.

The standby power is calculated by subtracting weekly run time of the appliance from weekly usage of the appliance. The total no.  of usage hours per week (24*7=168). We can observe that the standby energy consumption doesn’t consume much energy in the house but still it contributes to the energy consumption and electricity bill of the house.

5. Energy management opportunities

The followings steps are to be taken to minimize the energy consumption.

5.1 LED Lighting solutions

The efficiency of the house lighting solutions increases by shifting from CFL to LED.  The following advantages are evident

• The energy consumption is lesser in LED than CFL
• Luminance is enhanced in LED than CFL

The energy cost is calculated by average cost factor $ 0.36/kwh. The energy cost of LED bulb is calculated by multiplied LED (w), no .of hour’s usage and average cost factor.  The price of the LED bulb has been taken from the Philips website.

Total LED bulb costs=$109.6

Energy cost savings after switching to LED Bulbs=$2.44

Payback period =109.6/2.44*7= 314 days (say 10 months)

Similarly, halogen bulbs can also be replaced with LED Bulbs based on the following calculation:

Power rating of halogen Bulb              = 42 W

Usage of 4 table lamps per week         = 125 hours

Power rating of LED Bulb                     = 9 W

Energy cost of the halogen lamp         = $1.89

Energy cost of the LED Bulb                = $0.40

Saving in Energy cost                           = $ 1.48

Total cost to replace with LED Bulb     = 4*7.2=$29

Payback period                                       = 29/1.48 *7= 138 days (say 4.5 months)

From the above the calculation we can understand that switching over to LED Bulb will result in a saving of $1.48 per week. Due to cost saving and energy efficiency, it is recommended to replace halogen bulb with LED bulb.

5.2 Automated Lighting control systems

Lighting control systems plays an important role in residential building . Benefits like reduced energy consumption, operational convenience. A best example is Philips Hue White Starter kit E26. This starter kit includes two E26 bulbs, warm white light; control your voice, and Hue Bridge. The main advantage of this lighting system is:

(i)                 Motion detected, when there is no motion the bulb automatically turns off.

(ii)                It can control remotely .Even if we are not at home, it can control through app.

(iii)              The Hue

(iv)             Bridge can be controlled through voice recognizer by Google Assistant, Apple home kit.

(v)               It can synchronize with sunrise and sunset. (https://www2.meethue.com/en-us)

To understand the energy cost, the lighting system is tabulated below.

The tabular column gives the information about the estimated weekly duration of light requirement for the particular area.

The motion detector switches on the light when there is a motion and automatically switches off when there is no motion detected for a minute. For entrance, it is considered that   a household leaves and enters at least once in a day and it is 2 minutes per person.

Hence, 7*2=14*4persons=56minutes

The remaining 64 minutes is taken into account for guests, resident’s leaving and entering more than once in a day. For calculating the stand by power we have multiplied the weekly number of hours with factor 0.4. to calculate the energy consumption per week.

The above tabular column is calculated only for common area and individual bedroom is not calculated in this report. We are not sure how comfortable it would be with automated lighting control system in bedroom.

The starter kit will have two 9W bulbs and  five more bulbs need to be purchased in total of 7 bulbs. And five motion detectors need to be purchased as well.

Detector 1- To control from Entrance to Halfway1

Detector2 – To control from kitchen

Detector3- To control from halfway

Detector4 -To control from Bathroom

Detector5- To control from Toilet area.

Cost of Philips Hue starter kit      ($)                                   56

Cost of 5 bulb Philips Hue E27 LED Bulb ($29*5)             145

Cost 5 Philips Smart Wireless smart sensor ($59.95*5)   300

Total cost for installing Philips Hue control system ($)   501

Energy cost savings per week ($)                                      3.72

Payback period (   501 /4.56*7= 769 days)                         2 years and 1 month

5.3 Solar Powered Energy System

The purpose of installing solar panel is to reduce energy consumption of the house.  After comparison with various service providers, a suitable provider is chosen, and quotation obtained is shown below.  The main reason for choosing this provider is cheapest option among all the providers. For selecting the best solar panel, it is chosen from the website www.solarchoice.net.au.

Residential Solar system

It is observed that by use of solar power system, there will be a daily saving of $ 5.21 in consumption of Power. There is no power supplied to the Grid

Considering the daily saving, the entire Project cost of $5274 can be recovered in

5274/5.21 =1012 days which is equivalent to 2 years and 10 months under the Payback method.

Quotation of Solar System

6. Recommendations

6.1 Recommendation for Hot Water

• The heating unit must be operated only at the time of non-peak electricity mode.  The volume of water   heated and stored during non-peak hours can be used in peak time also to save on electricity bill.
• Immediate repairs should be done if there is any leakage in the appliance and water taps.
• Cold or warm water to be used to the maximum extent for the washing machine and dishwasher.
• Water heating unit should be checked periodically and maintained according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
• Installing high efficiency showerhead and faucet aerators will reduce the amount of energy required in the household.

6.2  Recommendation for Heating and Cooling

• Proper installation should be made for a comfortable house combined with passive solar design and drought proof.
• Select the proper size heater as oversize heater will cause waste of money and energy.
• Air sealing the roof
• Periodically clean the air filters as it should be free from dust.
• Select better efficiency appliances by shifting from 3-star to 5- star rating.

6.3 Recommendation for Lighting

         As far as lighting is concerned, there is more scope for reducing the energy cost by replacing CFL bulbs with energy efficient LED bulbs .Per Table in 5.1, the weekly saving in cost will be $2.44 and the cost of LED bulb can be recovered in 10 months.

         Similarly, by replacing halogen bulbs with LED, a saving of $ 1.48 can be achieved per week and the cost of replacement can be recovered in a period of 4.5 months.

• By switching over to automated lighting control system a further saving of $ 4.56 per week is possible and the cost of purchase can be recovered in 2years and 1 month.

6.4 Recommendation for Solar

Installation of solar power systems can significantly reduce the energy  cost of the house. There will be a daily saving of $5.21 as explained in Table 5.3. The entire project cost can be recovered in a period of 2years and 10 months.

6.5 White Goods

 Further, there is scope for reducing the energy consumption in the house in respect of white goods especially washing machine and Refrigerator when the latest energy efficient models are put into use.

7. Conclusion

As part of Energy audit, the energy consumption and efficiency of different electrical appliances in the house have been reviewed and recommendations given above to save on energy cost.

It may be observed that by adopting the above recommendations, there will be a daily saving of $ 6.44 (94%) with solar power and $ 1.23 (18%) without solar power as against the daily average energy cost of $6.88.

It may be noted that by implementing the above solutions, the ozone depleting substance can get reduced and any harm to the Society avoided by which current and future generations are benefited.

8. References

• Australia, G. o. (2019, 04 20). Retrieved from Australia’s offical weather forecasts & weather radar- Government Bureau of Meteorology: www.bom.gov.au/
• Choice, S. (2019, 04 24). Retrieved from Solar choice-Australia’s Solar Power Comparsion& Brokerage: www.solarchoice.net.au.
• Lighting, P. H. (2019, 04 24). Retrieved from The official site of Philips Hue | Meethue.com: https://www2.meethue.com/en-us
• service, A. B. (2019, 04 27). Retrieved from Interior Lighting Levels – Australian Building Services – WordPress.com: https://australianbuildingservices.wordpress.com/lighting-levels/.

9. Appendix -Manufacturer Specification

• Vacuum cleaner- https://www.hegroup.com.au/index.php/piranha-ruby-2400w-bagless-vacuum-cleaner.html
• Refrigerator-https://www.westinghouse.com.au/fridges/wtb2300wg/
• Washing Machine- https://www.lg.com/au/washing-machines/lg-WTG6520
• Microwave Oven –https://www.kmart.com.au/wcsstore/Kmart/pdfs/41928523%20-%2025L%20Microwave%20Convection%20Oven%20(Stainless%20Steel).pdf
• Router-http://www.netgear.com.au/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/default.aspx
• Water Heater-https://1stchoicehotwater.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Everhot-Owners-Guide-and-Installation-Instructions.pdf