Space heating and cooling, with solar or geothermal heat, can substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions in existing homes. A number of Australian companies have cost-effective commercial products and there are new innovations awaiting commercialisation. However, information barriers and skills gaps are reducing commercial uptake of these innovations. One key barrier is that there is no independent means to readily evaluate the performance of renewable heating and cooling technology. Consequently it is not possible to include it as an eligible technology in market support schemes such as the Renewable Energy Target meaning the technology is not able to receive the market support available to other renewable technologies and to compete with high emissions heating and cooling alternatives.
This project aims to address barriers to renewable heating and cooling technology and stimulate market demand. This will be achieved through:
- development of design guides, tools and databases
- industry training and knowledge dissemination
- participation in International Energy Agency market support activities, and
- through the development of a world first solar heating and cooling technical standard for evaluating energy savings to underpin eligibility status in tradeable certificate markets.