On a mission to investigate solar, battery and electrification retrofits for the block of flats she lives in, Coco Venaglia has faced hurdle after hurdle.
The building’s strata committee is open to upgrades but pressed for time, and was pleased when she offered to do the legwork.
Yet discussions about replacing the small, ageing and likely defunct rooftop solar array and installing a battery to split between apartments or power common infrastructure have been a hard-sell.
It seems landlords have little incentive to invest when the benefits largely flow to tenants through cheaper bills.
A mechanical “car stacker” lift in the garage of the inner Melbourne unit block poses a technical challenge for electric vehicle charging, the first-time owner says.
Quotes just to disconnect her apartment from the gas line – excluding the cost of new appliances – have also varied from $1500 to $4000, price tags Ms Venaglia suspects are over-inflated.
They may be reasonable estimates but she says it’s hard to know, with a “quagmire of information” to sift through.
The upgrade options are also difficult to square with the unique infrastructure and technical limitations of her building.
“Reducing the information barrier would be one of the best things,” she tells AAP
Finding providers that specialise in apartments – especially whole-building retrofits – has been an uphill battle as well.
Apartment occupants, renters and low income households – often one and the same – have long been left behind in Australia’s world-leading rooftop solar and now battery boom, tech that’s best paired with energy efficiency and electric appliances to depress bills and cut emissions further.
Energy Consumers Australia research suggests half the country faces zero structural roadblocks to solar and batteries but the remaining 50 per cent are restricted by tenure, dwelling type or affordability.
The group’s executive manager of advocacy and analysis, Ashley Bradshaw, says the runaway success of distributed solar and battery – encouraged by rebate schemes – benefits all energy users by lowering network costs, even if home owners in standalone dwellings benefit more.
Distributed energy has also proved a fast and scalable way to transition the power grid to meet renewables targets and climate goals, he adds, especially as large-scale projects experience headwinds.
Mr Bradshaw says consumer surveying suggests there is still huge opportunity for solar and battery growth, especially if policymakers do more to lower hurdles for disadvantaged groups.
Moves are already afoot.
Renters, making up roughly a third of households obstructed from solar and batteries, would benefit from minimum energy efficiency rental standards already in place in some states and under consideration in others.
Groups like Solar Citizens have been vocal on renter energy equity, campaigning for landlord tax incentives to encourage solar installs ahead of the last federal budget.
Trials of precinct-scale solutions are also on the agenda to leverage under-utilised city roof space.
Urban renewable energy zones would take advantage of large commercial, industrial and public rooftops to host solar backed by battery storage and share energy with nearby residential homes, including apartments.
This would reduce reliance on large-scale infrastructure.
Mr Bradshaw says apartment solar and electrification retrofits are notoriously difficult and the focus should be on phasing out gas connections in new builds to “stop the problem getting worse”.
Limited roof space per dwelling may make the economics of onsite solar installs hard to stack up for existing apartment blocks, he says.
The more cost-effective avenues to benefit from the changing energy ecosystem will differ for each home or building, he adds, with ceiling insulation potentially a better investment or taking advantage of the incoming free midday energy plans.
Wendy Russell, research fellow from Australian National University’s Centre for Energy Systems, has been looking into apartment electrification in Canberra.
Rooftop solar has the potential to significantly cut costs for apartments when powering energy-intensive shared infrastructure, she says, particularly electric vehicle charging and centralised hot water.
“Hot water actually is a form of energy storage,” she tells AAP.
“Particularly in an apartment context because you can use the hot water system to use up excess solar during the day.”
The study confirms an assortment of technical, regulatory and practical hurdles to apartment electrification and onsite generation, including roofs not strong enough to host solar panels and time-poor strata committees.
As well as identifying opportunities for regulatory reform, such as improving embedded networks, she recommends keeping an open mind on emerging technologies like balcony solar.
Deakin University director of the Centre for Smart Power and Energy Research, Saman Gorji, notes plug-in balcony solar and batteries are becoming popular in the US and Europe.
However they face a host of legal, technical and regulatory barriers in Australia.
The energy expert has been assessing state-level rebates for solar installations on apartments in NSW and Victoria.
Those of $150,000 for eligible shared systems in NSW and $2800 per apartment in Victoria beneficially cut upfront costs in shared buildings.
But rebates are not enough in isolation, Professor Gorji says.
He would like to see standard strata templates to help building committees navigate other common headaches.
He flags a growing energy equity divide between apartment occupants and detached home-owners, and says policymaking is at risk of entrenching the gap without fine-tuning.
“How could we refrain from having this energy divide widening further? he asks”
It’s a question Coco Venaglia is expecting no immediate answers to.
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