Episode 11 – Innovative solar, storage and sharing

Solutions for apartments There’s a problem for people living in medium and high density apartments as they lift ambition for climate action: Apartment blocks have limited roof space per apartment for solar PV and limited options for sharing stored energy … Continued

Episode 10 – Time-shifting energy usage

Out of the blue, our electricity retailer replaced our electricity meter with a smart digital meter, enabling billing based on time-of-day usage. So would our Tesla Powerwalls enable us to optimise, to benefit both our billing and the grid?

Come and visit Christie Walk

On Sustainable House Day – Sunday October 17th 2021, 10am to 4pm – come and visit Christie Walk. This unique urban community of 27 dwellings includes apartments, standalone strawbale houses, and townhouses. Sustainable design features include: passive solar design photovoltaic … Continued

Episode 9 – Battery storage – adding a second Tesla PowerWall

2021 – Battery options modelling In September 2020 we installed our first battery at Sturt Apartments, Christie Walk. You can read the story of our modelling, battery choices and lessons learned in Episode 7 – Battery storage – Tesla PowerWall 2 … Continued

Episode 8 – We need to talk about shower heads

How sustainable is your daily shower? Most shower heads at Christie Walk are WELS 3 standard, running at about 9L/minute. They were the best that were readily available when construction of our eco-village was completed in 2006. Older shower heads … Continued

Episode 7 – Battery storage – Tesla Powerwall 2

2020 – Battery options modelling In the middle of all that work on evacuated tubes, we learned that change was imminent in the SA Government Home Battery Scheme. To qualify for the maximum $6k subsidy, applications had to be lodged … Continued

Episode 6 – More evacuated tube solar hot water boosters

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community 2020 This was the crisis year for so many people – bushfires, COVID, job losses – and it also happened to be the year of our most adventurous emissions-reduction planning, carrying out 2 major … Continued

Episode 5 – Finalist – Carbon Neutral Adelaide Awards

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community 2016 to 2019 – Carbon Neutral Adelaide Since 2016 we’d had regular contact with the Carbon Neutral Adelaide team, culminating in our carbon emission inventory for the 2017 year. I’d also attended the Carbon … Continued

Episode 4 – Major PV upgrade

2019 For years we’d been tossing around options for increasing our solar performance without losing our high feed-in tariff (56c/kWh) for the 4.8kW PVs that were installed when the Christie Walk community built the Sturt Apartments in 2006.  But by … Continued

Episode 3 – Evacuated tube solar hot water boosters

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community May 2018 We started investigating the retrofit option for our hot water system: installing solar collectors as boosters to our existing heat pump hot water. One company stood out as a solid option: RunOnSun, … Continued

Episode 2 – Doing a carbon inventory

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community November 2017 I received an email inviting me to a meeting with the Carbon Neutral Adelaide team. They were scoping out a number of sites for selection as a possible “Carbon Neutral Showcase Site” … Continued

Episode 1 – In hot water again

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community April 2016 Our apartment building (Sturt Apartments at Christie Walk) was nearly ten years old. It was time to start thinking about sustainability upgrades to reduce our carbon footprint. Lighting was an easy place … Continued

Aiming beyond NetZero at Christie Walk

Adventures with an environment-conscious inner-urban community I’m fortunate to live at Christie Walk in Adelaide. It’s a community of 27 homes and gardens on 2,000m2. It was initiated by Urban Ecology Australia in 1999 as a demonstration project, to promote … Continued

Eco-city dreaming comes true

The facilitator – Jacqui Hunter of Hunter Gatherings – asked us to do some dream-work.  That’s normally not so hard, but there we were, standing in an awkward-shaped T-allotment strewn with bits of broken glass and featuring some derelict out-buildings.  … Continued

Entering the Ecological Age

posted in: Blog | 0

Peter Head, a Director at the engineering consulting firm ARUP is one of the world’s leaders in sustainable urban development. In his paper ‘Entering the ecological Age’ Peter Head sets out a vision for sustainable cities of the future. He … Continued

FoE’s Radioactive Exposure Tour, May 2011

posted in: Blog | 0

Friends of the Earth is hosting the annual Radioactive Exposure Tour from May 19−29, 2011. Since the 1980s, these tours have exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of ‘radioactive racism’ and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear … Continued