CSIRO senior experimental scientist Michael Ambrose is part of a team getting the tools ready for mandatory reporting including developing a cost-effective model to assess a home’s energy efficiency.
He said the sweet price point was around half the current cost for an energy audit which sits at around $600.
“That’s not really at the price point that would make our governments want to mandate the requirement to have an energy audit done,” he said.
“We’re in the throes now of trialling other methodologies and other ways, and tying it in with other activities that go on at the same time your house is getting ready to be sold, such as property valuers valuing for the banks.”
Ambrose said quick fix solutions that delivered the biggest bang for your buck include ceiling insulation, solar panels, roller shutters and heavy curtains.
Those quick fixes save around two tonnes annually which is around 11 plane trips between Sydney and Melbourne.
Getting a house ‘climate ready’ was more costly and complicated and included measures such as insulating the wall and floor cavities in double brick homes and installing double-glazed windows.
But he said the future of residential energy efficiency was a fixed battery at each home with scope to use electric vehicles to power properties.
“It’s very early days, but there’s been lots of talk about how can we get this integration with our EVs to our homes so we can have this whole smart grid into interconnectivity,” Ambrose said.
“So having our solar panels charge our cars and our cars feed into the grid, and then our cars also doing our home.”
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Strategic Property Group managing director Trent Fleskens said more information meant more visibility, better decisioning, and more transparency.
“It provides buyers with clarity over what they are buying in the same way they would buy an appliance or car with their safety and efficiency ratings,” he said.
“Further, this should entice developers and home builders to lift their game when it comes to meeting market expectations on how efficient a home should be. This can only be a good thing in the long run”.
Research conducted for Energy Consumers Australia and Renew in 2022 showed 66 per cent of people support mandatory energy efficiency disclosure.
Since 1999 in the ACT, there has been a requirement for mandatory disclosure of the energy performance of all existing residential properties that have been occupied and are offered for sale.
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