Sydney's energy-sharing project

The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has teamed up with the Central Park urban development project to create what is claimed to be Australia’s first district energy-sharing project.

District energy agreements work by tapping into the unused capacity of a large plant, which is used to power several buildings. It’s a common arrangement in North America and Europe; Chicago, for example, has four plants supplying chilling/thermal energy to over 100 buildings in the CBD.

UTS Green Infrastructure Project Manager Jonathan Prendergast first began looking into the Central Park partnership — which uses thermal pipes to connect UTS to the Brookfield Central Energy Plant — five years ago as part of a research project. He said the collaboration was a logical one, as heating, cooling and ventilation represent 62% of the university’s total electricity use.

“Installing new cooling infrastructure is expensive in terms of capital cost, and space at the UTS campus is at a premium,” said Prendergast.

“Also, for the new buildings that make up UTS’s $1.3 billion Campus Master Plan, wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have cooling towers on the roof and could have something else interesting, like a garden, up there instead?”

Brookfield Central Energy Plant has two highly efficient trigeneration engines powering its chilling supply. And while UTS’s peak chilling demand is on weekdays during teaching sessions at around 3 pm, the residential Central Park peaks during summer holidays, evenings and weekends. This makes the buildings good energy-sharing candidates.

It is predicted that the 15-year cooling contract will see UTS’s greenhouse gas emissions reduce by around 3%, or 1111 tonnes per annum. UTS is also currently investigating other potential arrangements, like sourcing some of its water supply from Central Park’s on-site water recycling facility.

The energy-sharing project is expected to be fully operational within two years.

Image caption: Cooling towers at Central Park. Image credit: Shane Lo.