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A whole system approach was adopted to optimize a residential pool filtering system. This project presents for the first time, the experimental measurements of the pool water quality (i.e., the chemical concentrations) and all energy-consuming components when operating the filtering system at low flow conditions.A full conference paper, describing the work relating to the energy efficient pool filtering system, is attached as an appendix to this report (Appendix 1).A full journal article, describing the work relating to the high efficiency solar pool heating system, is attached as an appendix to this report (Appendix 2).

This report covers the activities of utilisation project “Energy efficient swimming pools – engagement and utilization”. This involved project partners: School of PV and RE Engineering, UNSW, Simply Better Pool Savings, and Randwick Council.This partnership enabled Simply Better Pool Savings to utilise the research outputs from the CRC LCL Project RP1014 which investigated the use of low flow operation of solar pool heating and low flow operation for pool filtering. Residential pools account for up to 30% of a household’s total energy consumption, making them one of the largest energy consumers in the home.A typical residential pool filtering system uses a 1 kW pump and consumes over 2,000 kWh/year of electricity. A typical solar pool heating system normally operates over the swimming season (October to March). It utilises a pump that consumes ~0.75 kW or more and 6 kWh/day of electricity.The Pool Efficiency Program has provided a total of 70 pool energy assessments and retrofitted 39 pump speed controllers to existing single-speed pool pumps. The free pool energy assessments that were offered to the participants included a tailored summary of how their pool currently consumes energy, simple suggestions to reduce energy consumption, and either the subsidised pool pump retrofit or a subsidised pump replacement. On average, the Pool Efficiency Program has reduced the pool pump energy consumption by 71% (~1,740 kWh/year per household) and saved $486 on annual electricity bills. The associated GHG emission reductions are 1.67 tonnes CO2-e per household per year, which is approximately the same amount of emissions produced by a typical car travelling 6,400 kilometres.Over 94% of the participants who adopted a pool pump retrofit have reported that they are either ‘satisfied’ or better with their experience in Pool Efficiency Program. Over 44% said they were ‘extremely satisfied’.The pool pump noise has been reduced by approximately 86% on average, which was highly regarded by all participants. As compared to the conventional pool industry in Australia, the pump retrofit option and setup optimisation provided by the Pool Efficiency Program is estimated to achieve ~44% higher solution adoption rates and obtain ~70% additional energy savings in every household that adopts the recommended improvements (~720 kWh/year). The energy savings were delivered by a) reducing the main filtering pump speed, and some combination of; b) reducing the solar pool heating pump speed and/or; c) optimizing the run times of the main filtering pumps and/or; and d) optimizing the run times of the pressure pool cleaner pumps. Where necessary and possible optimizations could also involve recommended changes to other existing pool equipment e.g. chlorinators.Assuming all eligible residential swimming pools in the Randwick area were retrofitted with the pump speed controller, approximately 3.7 GWh of electricity could be saved every year, which corresponds to approximately 3.5 kt CO2-e of GHG emission reductions.&nbsp

This report presents a summary of all the findings and activities performed in the LCL-CRC research project RP1011 “Sustainable and affordable living through modular homes and communities” and represents the culmination of the project. The main objective of the project was to develop innovative designs, evaluate current and future technologies, and establish assessment processes that would both contibute to the wider research and knowledge of the project’s field and allow the projects industry partner; Nova Deko, to manufacture sustainable, net zero energy, and affordable homes and communities, based on transportable modular units (Pods).

Rapid growth of distributed small scale Photovolatic (PV) systems has increased the need for tools that can undertake reliable real time monitoring of system performance with the capability to detect and diagnose underperformance at the earliest possible stage. This project refined the system performance algorithms within Solar Analytics, a PV systems monitoring tool offered by Suntech, to improve their accuracy and to test their ability to predict the performance of residential and commercial PV systems. This project also developed an initial set of algorithms to detect and diagnose underperformance. The project also investigated the feasibility of (1) including forecasts of PV system performance within Solar Analytics and (2) the integration of commercial building energy management systems with Solar Analytics to provide a holistic energy management platform for the small to medium sized commercial office buildings market.

This publication provides astatus report on the project underway to identify opportunities and barriers, establish functional specifications, and propose a roadmap for the uptake of building integrated PV.Conventional photovoltaic (PV) module costs are reducing as manufacturers scale up PV production. Crystalline silicon (single or multi-crystalline wafers) still dominates the industry while thin film manufacturers, apart from CdTe, are having difficulty competing. The cost of the PV device is decreasing most significantly as production increases. This leaves module costs as well as Balance of Systems costs as the major barriers to further lowering costs.As costs fall, the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from PV is now, in many places cost competitive with retail electricity prices. PV on buildings is therefore the most economic location to install PV.