Crowne Plaza Terrigal recently installed the mySmart Hotel Room Control System which intelligently controls the air conditioning in each of its 199 guest rooms. The Smart Digital Thermostat is easy and intuitive to use - it uses motion sensing and door switches to detect when the room is in use. The thermostat can be used in stand-alone mode, control the room lights or integrate with the hotel’s check-in system.

In August this year, the KSB Group signed a framework agreement covering the supply of pumps and mixers for 52 municipal effluent treatment plants in China. The order is for a total of 335 mixers and 466 wastewater pumps of different types and sizes.

The construction of Sydney Water’s new desalination plant at Kurnell, south-east of Sydney, is in full swing and is said to be on track to become operational this summer. The automation and control of this innovative project is based on Profibus technology. Endress+Hauser was selected to be one of three key members of the main automation alliance to engineer and supply all general instrumentation to the plant.

A new initiative by Sydney Water is being implemented to manage liquid trade waste.

Located 40 km west of Dalby in Queensland’s Darling Downs, Origin Energy’s Darling Downs Power Station (DDPS) is a new gas-fired power station that will produce 630 MW of power when it commences operation in the first part of 2010.

Delegates at the EcoForum Conference & Exhibition in Sydney this February will hear about what is possibly the first indirect-to-potable stormwater harvesting project in Australia when presenter Chris Devitt from the drought-stricken city of Orange, New South Wales, describes how his council found a long-term, sustainable solution to a steady decline in water storage levels that had reached as low as 26.7% in August 2008.

A commercial plastic milk bottle wash and recycling facility serving communities across the whole of the South Island of New Zealand was officially opened last November. The plant was commissioned in August and is now processing 600 kg of milk bottles per hour or 100,000 bottles per day.

There is more than $3 billion in federal and state government 'green' grants and subsidies available and most companies do not know they are available or how to access them, according to sustainability consultancy Equilibrium OMG.

How can lighting designers use intelligent controls to improve building energy management? Philips Dynalite Energy Management Segment Manager, Brett Annesley, explains how an environmentally sustainable development (ESD) strategy can deliver energy efficiency outcomes, while addressing indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and changing occupancy requirements.

Australia’s electronic waste is a growing problem, with only a small fraction of it being recycled and the rest ending up in landfill. A new announcement from the EPHC is set to change all that, however, as Andrew Collins reports.

Some of the latest and most innovative ideas in sustainable and cost-effective desalination practices were raised and discussed at the inaugural National Desalination Research Roadmapping Workshop, held in Perth on 29 and 30 October.

A young engineering student may have found a brilliant way to fulfil every scientist’s ‘unattainable’ dream of renewable energy.

Properly matching an air compressor to the application is the first step towards improving energy efficiency. Rather like a tennis racquet, each compressor variant has a 'sweet-spot' - defining the duty zone at which the compressor operates with the highest efficiency. Represented graphically, the sweet-spot is a distinct zone within a given range of operating hours per year, and percentage loads.

It came as no surprise last week that the Labor government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was defeated for the second time in the Senate. Under the new coalition rule of Tony Abbott, only two liberal senators crossed the floor and voted with their opposition for the ETS legislation - they were Senators Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth. At 33 votes for to 41 against, their votes were not enough to pass the bill.

Once extracted from the ground, mined ore is subjected to a complex series of steps before it can be converted into its purest state ready for use. The continual improvement of these process steps is critical to ongoing profitability of mine operations.