Getting your block’s energy saving program on the fast track

​Any owner of a property within a strata scheme gets the annual report for the block (usually in hard copy) which will detail the annual electricity spend. Any owner can take this information and become the “energy reduction champion” for the block.

There are now two different paths which an energy reduction champion can take to get an energy reduction program moving in their block.

1) The Slow Way

• Visit 4 different websites and wander through all the material on offer
• Attend an evening meeting with experts to get some guidance on what to do and how to do it
• Make phone calls to a dozen different companies
• Escort half a dozen representatives from these different companies into your building at pre-arranged times
• Request a dozen quotes for products and services
• Request another 1/2 dozen quotes from those same tradespeople to get alternative quotes
• Arrange and attend at least three Executive Committee meetings of the body corporate (Owners Corporation)
• Create at least 4 different spreadsheets trying to calculate different payback times for different projects
• Send over 20 group emails to an Executive Committee of the body corporate (Owners Corporation)
• Contact Executive Committees in 4 other apartment buildings to see what did and didn’t work for them
• Get all members of the Executive Committee on the same page as to which projects should be included in an energy saving program
• Get all members of the Executive Committee on the same page as to what order the projects in an energy saving program should be run
• Do over 100 “back of the envelope” calculations to justify why the block should or should not proceed with energy saving projects

OR

2) The Fast Way

• Spend 10 minutes on a website which has an energy saving calculator and roadmap generator for strata buildings
• Forward the automatically generated report on email to all members of the Executive Committee to stimulate discussion on commencing an energy saving program