Plan to ‘electrify’ city blocks is on the charge

Strata sustainability experts Wattblock have launched a campaign to electrify more than 6000 apartment blocks across a number of Sydney’s Local Government Areas.

Aiming to make a major contribution to zero emissions targets, the ElectrifyStrata project started in North Sydney, has spread to nine other LGAs and has City of Sydney in its sights.

The project is based on one in Wollongong called Electrify 2515, which aims to get everyone in that postcode to move to solar, electric vehicles, heat pumps and electric induction cooktops.

Electrify 2515 was launched by local author Saul Griffith who wrote the book The Big Switch on Australia’s electric future.  Saul has created a local community initiative to persuade residents and builders of new homes to get rid of fossil fuels for heating, cooking and cars and turn to renewables, directly through solar panels and indirectly through the electricity grid.

Meanwhile Wattblock has done a lot of work on strata sustainability for North Sydney council, as part of their Futureproofing Apartments program so they  know that area well.

They note that it’s also possibly the local government area with most strata buildings at 2400 strata blocks, ahead of City of Sydney with 2200.

Their Electrify Strata North Sydney 2060 project has mapped ALL 2,400 strata schemes in North Sydney and recorded what “electrification” upgrades they have undertaken. 

These are all in different layers on the interactive google map, linked in the website,  so you can see what is installed in different strata schemes. This is very handy information for sustainability-minded prospective buyers and renters.

Wattblock estimates that across the strata schemes in the North Sydney local government area there are:

• 18 solar installations
• 1 solar installation with battery
• 4 heat pumps installed in strata for domestic hot water
• 5 schemes with EV charging infrastructure
• 8 permanent electricity monitoring devices in stratas. 
• 11 strata buildings with embedded networks (microgrids)

“We have now expanded ElectrifyStrata out to cover 10 local government areas around Sydney and over 16,000 more strata schemes,” says Wattblock’s Brent Clark.

Local government areas covered are North Sydney, Inner West, Lane Cove, Mosman, Woollahra, Canada Bay, Randwick, Kur-ring-gai, Willougbhy, Ryde.

Looking at their challenge with a glass-half-full perspective, they have plenty of potential for making a difference. The following is the combined penetration across these LGA’s of different “electrifying” technologies.

• Solar 0.7%
• Battery 0.05%
• EV Charging 0.2%
• Heat Pumps 0.1% 
• Electricity Monitoring Devices 0.1%
• Embedded Networks 1.0%
• NABERS for Apartment Buildings Ratings1.3%

“We are applying for an environmental innovation grant from the City of Sydney to extend Electrify Strata through their local government area as that is the most complex one to map,” says Mr Clark.