Ease of installation is a key benefit. Running 24V over 80-100meters is simple, no electrician required. The transformer, weather-proof of course, simply plugs into a power point. Branching off to specific areas of the garden is simple. The intensity of the lights can also vary, from less than one watt to 51W+ for whole area lighting. By choosing the right colour and angle of throw you can set up a wide range of displays in one garden area; leading the observer from one section to another.

Using 12 or 24V wiring ensures safety around the garden and water is high. Even when the LED is used it generates very little heat, so it is safe for children, pets and plants! The added benefit is LED lighting does not attract insects due to the lack of UV light. One of the bug bears of using halogen lights, a current favourite for garden lighting is heat and its related issue of globes blowing (due to the heat generated). LED lights offer long-life, over 50,000 hours or 11+ years at 12 hours a night, 7 days a week. This benefit alone is valuable in commercial settings. Maintenance is significantly reduced and while not often accounted for is usually much more than the existing installation. Naturally, this situation gets worse over time; with LED it’s virtually eliminated. When the lights are on the safety of users is high, with the increased awareness of providing lighting for security LEDs provide a much greater insurance policy that once installed, they stay lit. This is especially, if LED lighting is used for pathways. Power and energy costs are factors often not previously considered. Large power users, and this means most Local Councils, Community facilities and the like will be seriously examining ways to lower their energy costs and carbon footprint to meet Federal and State Government guidelines and regulations. LED lighting is an easy option to meet and exceed these targets. A win for all concerned. 

Overall LED lighting provides unrivalled opportunities to expand the landscape designer ability to add real value and pleasure in a garden, commercial or domestic. The economic argument in favour of LED lighting in commercial gardens is overwhelming and will continue to grow offering the significant advantages of saving in maintenance, safety, energy bills and low carbon footprint. For the most adventurous you can even used multi-spectrum LED to aid growing plants. 

To add that special dramatic finish to a night-time garden LED lighting offers the real flexibility to light it as the client wishes, altering its tone, strength and colour at the touch of a switch. LED lighting with a few simple guidelines can offer a versatile lighting experience.

Security made clearer with LED lighting

The on-going problem with many security lighting is lack of clarity and poor CCT images, or un-serviceable globes. These two problems are related to the technologies used. It’s true that lighting has become brighter and longer lasting, but and there is a big but. The new technologies come at a cost and it’s not just the initial investment or complaints from the neighbours and Local Councils because of the glare, or light pollution. Operating costs of 200W+ lamps are mounting up. Clients are taking power operating costs more seriously and in these difficult times want to ensure they are achieving savings on power and can claim to be more ‘carbon neutral’. This is difficult when relying on old technologies.  You may have heard of warm white, cool white, natural white and even Kelvin scores and be familiar with ordering lamps by their wattage. But what does all this mean and how can it matter to security lighting?  

Let’s take the ‘seeing’ problem, it’s all to do with how the ‘eye’ sees, or more accurately responds to light waves how our brain then processes them into images. We are all aware that daylight changes colour throughout the day, from the brightness of morning and noon light to the softer warmer colours of late afternoon and sunset. In technical terms the light spectrum has shifted from the ‘blue’ end of the spectrum (400-500nm) at noon to ‘red’ (600-700nm) in the afternoon. The cones and rods in the eyes respond differently to these wave lengths.

Why should this be a problem? To see clearly we need daylight, called cool white in LED terms with a Kelvin (K) score of 5000+, in contrast warm white is often between 2300K and 3500K. The ‘blue shifted’ light is better seen and ideal for security.    ‘Red shifted’ = warm, ideal for candle lit dinners and sandstone Sydney buildings and ‘Blue shifted’ = cool, ideal for reading and seeing CCT images. 

The ‘blue shift’ can be specified with LED lighting, i.e. cool white with nominated K readings.

As we age we also lose our ability to process warm white effectively. We literally need brighter lights to read/see. This has implications for lighting of pathways, walkways and car parks.

An example of a car park, one with LED and the other high pressure sodium (on right).

LED Lighting in tunnels and street lighting produces daylight style light for ease of sight, improving safety and giving much longer maintenance life-cycles >50,000 hours.

Other practical benefits of LED lighting, apart from the 80%+ power saving are much less heat, you can touch an LED without burning your hand, shock and dust resistance, drop them and they still work, weather proof ( up to IP68) and no UV light is produced, i.e. no attraction to insects, is recyclable. Plus high power factor (>0.9) performance, a further incentive for power saving. A better understanding of lumens, and how the ‘eye’ perceives light in ‘brightness’ and spectrum will lead to better outside lighting options being considered. LED’s are well positioned to take advantage of this understanding. They offer a wider spectrum of colour to respond to photoptic and scotopic and mesopic sensitivities of the eye.

LED’s produce high lumens per watt. In general this exceeds 100 lumens per watt and 150 lumens per watt products are already on the market. Light output is now more than adequate for security situations; with the added benefit of removing ‘light pollution’ and minimising glare issues. Overall LED lighting in security situations will become more frequently used, as they are already for traffic lights and cars, for outside building illumination, offering ease of installation, significantly reduced  operating costs (a factor to consider in the future carbon trading environment), much longer maintenance cycles, and improved clarity of images from CCT. The LED technology is proven in overseas applications and well worth considering for Australian applications. 

Renewable Energy Target next step to White Paper

Following a more detailed review of the federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) white paper, the Clean Energy Council has prepared the following summary on key aspects relating to the urgent development and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.

The industry is encouraged by the government’s move to maintain momentum by starting the scheme in 2010 and highlighting the importance of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at around 450ppm CO2-e.

However, the shallow initial targets and the anticipated low carbon prices will not drive the significant transformations needed in the Australian energy sector.  This approach can only be justified if the government moves immediately to deploy a suite of complementary measures to drive multi-billion dollar investment in clean energy technologies and drive energy efficiency in homes and businesses.

Carbon Price

Australia’s emissions trading scheme will get going in 2010 with the white paper assuming a starting price of around $25 per tonne. The price of emissions is set to be capped at $40 per tonne escalating at 5% real per annum.  This rate is too low on its own to trigger investment in large scale renewables.  Allowing importing of emissions credits means the eventual carbon price is likely to be driven by international rather than Australian activity.

Renewable Energy Target (RET)

The white paper signalled progress for the design and implementation of the expanded renewable energy target, reiterating the introduction of a 20 per cent by 2020 goal. Draft RET legislation is due for release later today.

This will release more than $20 billion of new investment, help drive immediate cuts in emissions and may help cushion the cost of transition to a low-carbon economy.

The white paper states that legislative and regulatory amendments to implement the design of the Renewable Energy Target are expected to be in place by July 2009, with revised targets commencing from 2010. 

The Clean Energy Council is concerned that the proposed RET will be phased out between 2020 and 2030.  Modelling undertaken for the Council indicates that to ensure the success of the RET in achieving 45,000GWh of new renewable generation in 2020, the target and the penalty price need to be maintained until 2030.

Climate Change Action Fund (CCAF)

The white paper announced a new measure, the CCAF, to assist smaller businesses and community groups invest in cleaner technologies and energy efficiency measures.  These companies and groups will otherwise not benefit from compensation measures highlighted in the paper.

The Clean Energy Council welcomes measures like these to encourage the deployment of low emissions technologies like bioenergy, geothermal, wind, oceanic, solar as well as energy efficiency.  The CCAF is scheduled to commence in the second half of 2009, ahead of the start of emissions trading.  The early deployment of this fund will help smaller businesses and community groups to prepare for the start of the CPRS in 2010.

Principles to guide the implementation of complementary measures

Importantly the white paper has, for the first time, outlined a set of principles by which all complementary measures will be developed. This will serve as a useful guide for future discussion relating to emission reductions. The principles focus on delivering against specific market failures, and must ensure efficiency, effectiveness, equity and administrative simplicity.

Renewable Energy Fund

As revealed by Prime Minister Rudd on Sunday, the Renewable Energy Fund announced in the May budget will be brought forward to be spent over the next 18 months rather than the original five year timeframe. This fund includes $15m for second generation biofuels and $50m specifically for geothermal drilling.

The remainder of the fund will go towards large scale demonstration projects that will deliver technology from the laboratory straight to homes and businesses, helping to prove a project’s viability on a technical and economic basis.

Under the fund, the private sector must contribute at least $2 for every $1 provided by the government. The fund will be launched in the New Year with the release of guidelines for applicants and a call for a first round of applications.

This investment is expected to provide great impetus for the early development of geothermal, solar thermal, bioenergy and ocean generation projects.

What Next?

The government has outlined a comprehensive work program on the development and deployment of complementary measures to deploy clean energy technologies and drive energy efficiency.  These include:

• draft Renewable Energy Target (RET) legislation due out today
• RET legislative and regulatory amendments in place by mid 2009 and starting in 2010
• development of a national energy efficiency strategy in early 2009
• deployment of the Renewable Energy Fund in early 2009, and
• release of the draft Climate Change Action Fund (CCAF) in February 2009 ahead of the program launch in mid to late 2009.

It’s imperative that the implementation of these complementary measures are simple, efficient and effective so as not to compromise the accelerated development or deployment of any technology or measure.  The only way this planned soft start to Australia’s emissions trading scheme will work is by enabling rapid, large scale investment towards renewable energy and energy efficiency measures that reduce emissions immediately.

The Clean Energy Council will continue to work closely with all levels of government to ensure these initiatives are realised and Australia’s energy future remains secure.

Written and published by The Clean Energy Council, the peak body for the clean energy sector, is working with all Australian governments to ensure a secure and diversified energy sector; reducing energy waste including the take up of solar water heating and insulation; and more clean energy sources in our stationary energy mix from solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, bioenergy and gas.

Solar Power and Hot Water Together Make Energy Sense

Did you know that if you team up solar power with your largest user of electricity, your hot water, you can significantly reduce your future power costs with the added benefits of reducing CO2 emissions and making your home more sustainable?  Eco Living Centre’s founder, Alistair Duncan, explains how.

“Combined with eligible Government rebates you could have a renewable energy package utilising a 1kW power system combined with a 300L flat plate collector for as little as $6,000 fully installed in the Sydney metropolitan region. This investment reduces your power bills, adds value to your home and reduces your carbon foot-print to aid the earth’s sustainability.“First, the electric hot water systems that typically represents between 30-40% of a home’s energy usage. A very high proportion of this can be simply replaced with a two flat panel Thermosiphon unit. Government grants can be up to $3100 (comprising of $1300 Renewable Energy Rebates, $800 NSW Government grant and a Federal Government grant of $1,000). These are available to eligible households.

Solahart Thermosiphon System	Combined with a 1kW Photovoltaic System

  Second, add  the solar power or photovoltaic system that qualifies for a $8,000 rebate. This enables a 1kW system to be installed for as little as $4,000. “This translates to an estimated total saving of around two thirds of your current energy bill. In an environment where energy costs are on the rise the payback period for this joint system is shorter than if only solar hot water is installed. Eco Living Centre can complete the installation in a day” Duncan says.For more information call 1300 308 823 Eco Living Centre.

Eco Living Centre joins Ausbuy

ECO LIVING CENTRE is the latest AUSBUY member. Lynne Wilkinson, CEO of AUSBUY says “ECO LIVING CENTRE encapsulates all that is special about Australian owned businesses. It has been a leader in advising, supplying and installing some of the most innovative products in water and energy saving products, especially those initiated in Australia, and represents all that AUSBUY supports in Australia; a clever, innovative and productive country. AUSBUY welcomes their membership and encourages consumers, businesses and governments to support Australian owned businesses like ECO LIVING CENTRE”.To see other Australian Owned and made products and businesses visit www.ausbuy.com.au

Solar Power Can Thrive Economically in Australia

New modelling shows sun can shine on Australian solar power

NATIONAL: Australia is in a strong position to develop a thriving national solar industry over the next 20 years, according to a report into the renewable energy sector released today by the Clean Energy Council (CEC).

The report, undertaken by Access Economics, provides a compelling economic case for the implementation of a gross national feed-in tariff in Australia.

“What this shows is that with the right policy and investment, there’s a strong future for sustainable and profitable growth in Australia’s renewable energy sector,” said CEO of the Clean Energy Council, Matthew Warren.

“Australia’s share of the global solar market has fallen from seven per cent in 1992 to one per cent in 2007 - despite having the highest average solar radiation of any country in the world, Australia significantly lags behind other countries in its investment in the solar industry.”

The report shows a gross national FIT would drive investment in solar PV systems by the commercial and residential sectors, assuming 3,000 MW of capacity is deployed, of up to $17.9 billion over the next 20 years (NPV at 5.7 per cent).

Solar industries in other countries that have adopted a national gross feed-in tariff have developed strong industries that encourage take-up of solar through consumer earnings and cost savings.

“The report shows a gross feed-in tariff will be the trigger for strong investment - and growth - in the solar sector,” Mr Warren said.

“This kind of policy in Australia could help reduce residential and commercial demand for energy and help deliver electricity on hot sunny days when it is the most valuable.

“As a result, the modelling suggests solar energy can defer investment in gas-peaking plans”.

The Access Economics report records the sharp increase in deployment of solar panels in Australia since 2007 when the increased federal government rebate triggered increased awareness and affordability of the technology.

The report also states Australia’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) may be insufficient to drive significant investment in the solar sector.

“A gross feed-in tariff is entirely complimentary to a CPRS and a 20% MRET, but it’s important to note that currently, less than one per cent of the MRET comes from solar sources,” said Mr Warren.

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Eco Living Centre Appointed the Solahart Lower North Shore Distributor

Hot water break down? Want to go solar, but not sure how to go about it? Eco Living Centre is the newly appointed Solahart Lower North Shore distributor and can provide a 24 hour service to install your Solahart system.You’ll benefit from free hot water from the sun, saving between 50-90% of your hot water bills, and feel good knowing that you are doing the right thing saving CO2 emissions.

Alistair Duncan, founder of Eco Living Centre, says, “We are delighted to be appointed as the Solahart Lower North Shore Distributor. It means we can respond quickly to any request to install a new Solahart hot water system, anywhere in the lower North Shore, from Mosman to Epping, across to Ryde and down to Woolwich. It’s an ideal time for anyone wanting to save on their energy bills; after all they are only going to get more expensive.

“A Solahart system gives you peace of mind and safeguards you against those ever increasing bills. You have more than enough hot water for your needs.  Originally developed here in Australia nearly a century ago, the range today is extensive. Our trained consultants are on hand to advise on the best system for the householders’ needs. Our emergency response team can ensure that a new hot water system is installed quickly.” 

“Eco Living Centre can also advise you about the Government rebates,which make solar hot water a very attractive proposition with up to $3000 available, depending on the system.  Our showroom at 236 Victoria Road, Gladesville offers a comprehensive range of water and energy saving products from water tanks to LED lighting, ideal for the householder or business, and  including Solahart hot water systems that offer a great investment  in energy saving.  Homes featuring sustainable systems not only save money, they add value to your property.”  Call Eco Living Centre on 1300 308 823 or visit the showroom.

Eco Living Centre Now offers you lighting design solutions

LIGHTING DESIGN

Eco Living Centre is proud to announce that we now have a full lighting design and rendering facility available. By utilizing the AGi32 program Eco Living Centre can show you how LEDs and other energy efficient lighting solutions can work for your lighting applications.    AGI32 is not only a comprehensive point-by-point program, but a lightning fast, photometrically correct, colour-rendering tool as well. Imagine computing all of your point-by-point values simultaneously with a full colour image. Now you can not only review the “numbers”, but incorporate accurate visualization into your everyday lighting design. This is enormously powerful for both conceptualization and presentation. You get great lighting design to show your clients and the confirmation its meets the power lumen densities required for section J.

Eco Living Centre has the capability of predict lighting system performance for any application from one luminaire in a jail cell to hundreds of luminaires in a professional sports facility. Interior or exterior, we can build environments for most any lighting application with unlimited luminarie, calculation points, reflective or transmissive surfaces.   Eco Living Centre can present lighting designs to you and to your clients with just the click of a mouse, this programs allows us to take you on an animated walk through of your design as shown below.

‘Don’t be kept in the Dark’

  ‘Don’t be kept in the dark’

LED lighting explained – latest trends from the USA  Join us on Wednesday, 18 June, 2008 at 3.30pm in our showroom for an up-date from the Lighting Fair O8 held in Las Vegas last month.  Learn about the latest trends in lighting, and how technologies are being refined to meet new benchmarks in energy usage. The USA is leading the way, focusing their support on LED lighting as the most efficient, non-toxic, sustainable lighting, and new products are being introduced monthly.  

LEDs-R-Us can keep you the up-to-date so you can advise your clients about the many options LEDs offer, and importantly what you cannot do. This informative talk will give you the information you need to talk knowledgably. You will see actual demonstrations and products. We will also discuss the latest in CFL’s and why they may be banned in the US, and show an alternative to T5’s that generate even greater power savings.

 So join us at236 Victoria Road, Gladesville.Wednesday 18 June, 2008 at 3.30pm for about an hour. Parking at rear of building or in side streets. Light refreshments will be served.Please call NOW to reserve your place as numbers are limited.  9817 4911

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