Renew Magazine 164 / Jul-Sep 2023

Jul—Sep 2023 Hi there, Well, the race to electrify everything in this country is well and truly on. After months of work, Renew has launched its Getting Off Gas toolkit, an extensive resource—which includes a series of free online events-for making the transition away from gas in your home. We've marked the occasion with a bumper Getting Off Gas special in this issue of the magazine: 20-plus pages of articles, guides and profiles to help you be part of the solution. Don't miss our interview with New York Times bestselling author Sarah Wilson who, after her massively successful I Quit Sugar campaign, is now telling everyone: “I Quit Gas”. Our cover interview this issue is with the trailblazing folks at Earthworker Cooperative, who are building solutions for a just transition…

Jul—Sep 2023 Like all of Australia's high country, Canberra and its surrounds are beautiful in winter. But it's a lot easier to appreciate the season when you have a warm home to go to—and too many homes just aren't doing the job. Last winter, Better Renting tracked indoor temperatures in eight Canberra rental homes. They found temperatures below the World Health Organisation's threshold for healthy homes of 18 degrees a shocking 88.3% of the time; the average daily minimum temperature recorded was 7.4 degrees. Weatherproofing homes to make them healthy can make a major difference-and insulation is among the single biggest measures to improve liveability in winter cold and summer heat. So, it is big news that from April this year, the ACT has become the first territory or state…

Renew Renew is a national, not-for-profit organisation that inspires, enables and advocates for people to live sustainably in their homes and communities. Established in 1980, Renew provides expert, independent advice on sustainable solutions for the home to households, government and industry. Renew engages with more than 250,000 people each year around Australia and beyond. We work with more than 10,000 members in a network of 14 active branches throughout the country, and have helped thousands of households save money and reduce their environmental footprint with information on energy efficiency, solar power, rainwater tanks, materials reuse and waste. Our community includes attendees at our Speed Date a Sustainability Expert and Sustainable House Day events, users of our online information and calculators, people contacting our advice service, and our research and advocacy…

World approaching 1.5°C As it became apparent that human activity was indeed warming the planet, under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, governments of the world belatedly set a target of keeping the warming below 1.5°C. As anyone with abasic science background would already know, such a target was pure fantasy, and that has been borne out by a recent report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which states that we will soon breach the 1.5 °C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency. As global average temperatures have never before exceeded the 1.5 °C threshold in recorded human history, the fact that the report found there was a 66% likelihood of exceeding the 1.5 °C threshold in at least one year between 2023 and 2027 signals a serious situation…

While China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter (in total, not per capita), they also install vastly more renewable generation capacity than anywhere else. The world's largest wind farm project-the onshore Jiuquan Wind Power Base, part of which can be seen above-has a planned capacity of 20 GW (currently at 8 GW operational), but that is about to be eclipsed with China's latest planned windfarm, a massive 43.3GW offshore facility in the Taiwan Strait. How big is 43 GW? Well, it's almost equivalent to the entire electricity generation capacity of Australia, including renewables and fossil fuels. So, this is no small system, and due to the high wind levels in the proposed location, the Taiwan Strait system is expected to have a capacity factor (the average percentage of rated…

01 DC charging for business If you run a fleet of EVs, then you may need faster charging than the typical 7kW on-board charger can provide, but freestanding DC chargers are expensive and can take up a lot of space. The Delta DC Wallbox charger is aimed to fill the need for faster charging than AC can provide, while remaining compact and realistically priced. The DC Wallbox has a rated output of 25 kW and can supply that power to any EV with a CCS or CHAdeMO DC charge socket-so pretty much every EV on the market. The Wallbox requires a suitable threephase AC grid connection, but most commercial premises should have an appropriate mains grid supply. Other features of the DC Wallbox indude four-metre charge cables (seven-metre optional), a maximum…