City of Sydney adopts low-carbon energy production

City of Sydney employees are now working in an environment powered by a low-carbon trigeneration plant.

This type of energy production emits less than half the carbon emissions of the coal-fired plants that generate around 80% of Sydney’s electricity.

The plant has been gradually phased in over the last three months and is now fully supplying the City’s civic buildings on working weekdays from 7 am to 10 pm.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

According to Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the 1400 kW system is expected to cut carbon emissions by more than 40,000 tonnes over its 30-year lifetime — equivalent to 1500 small cars.

“Installing trigeneration power at Town Hall is already helping us reduce our reliance on coal-generated energy hauled in from the Hunter Valley and allows us to power, heat and cool our buildings from a clean, local supply,” Moore said.

In addition to meeting the weekday energy needs of Sydney Town Hall and Town Hall House, the rooftop generation plant is ready to export significant amounts of electricity to the grid. This could help manage peak power demands and defer costly investment in electricity network upgrades.

Trigeneration is an efficient decentralised energy technology where electricity is made near where it is used, avoiding the need to bring electricity over long distances. It replaces coal-fired electricity and reduces emissions from connected buildings.

The City of Sydney received a grant of $3.05 million from the federal government’s Community Energy Efficiency Program for the trigeneration project. The system was designed and installed by national building services contractor AE Smith.

“Trigeneration is part of our practical portfolio of sustainability programs to cut carbon emissions by 70% based on 2006 levels, along with building retrofits for energy efficiency, installing solar panels on the buildings we own and offsetting carbon emissions,” said Moore.

The City is Australia’s first carbon-neutral government and it has reduced emissions in its buildings and operations by 27% on 2006 levels.

Trigeneration already operates in many properties across Sydney, including commercial buildings like Qantas Flight Services, Google, 1 Bligh Street, 133 Castlereagh Street and 20 Bond Street. It also features at community clubs like Rooty Hill RSL and Castle Hill RSL, as well as multiple local governments like Hornsby, Leichhardt, North Sydney, Willoughby and Wagga Wagga councils.

The trigeneration plant uses seven 200 kW capstone microturbines that can each turn down to a tenth of their total power output, meaning they can follow the electrical demand in the building during both summer and winter months.

The first public electricity supply in the world was the cogeneration system, implemented by Edison in 1882 to supply electricity and steam to Manhattan. This was later converted to a trigeneration system and is now the eighth largest decentralised energy network in the world.

Image courtesy of City of Sydney