Where Do Councils Put Their Energy?

Established in 1840, Adelaide City Council is the oldest municipal authority in Australia. The City of Adelaide local government area covers the original Adelaide city centre settlement. The City of Adelaide has responsibility for the Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide and is also responsible for the Adelaide Parklands which surround North Adelaide and the city centre. Adelaide City Council’s environmental and sustainability activities include monitoring and managing biodiversity, water, waste and noise within its Council area and reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from Council operated facilities.

Meeting the Challenge >>

The implementation of an Enterprise Energy Management System (EEMS) was one of a number of projects initiated by the Adelaide City Council to support and facilitate the delivery of one of the key goals of its Carbon Neutral Council Action Plan, namely, to reduce carbon emissions from the corporate building sector of the Council by 25%.

The principal objectives of the EEMS were to enable:

• Energy data capture
• A carbon emissions inventory
• Utility billing analysis and cost allocation
• Generation of reports
• Advanced energy modelling and trend analysis

The Council’s existing Building Management System, although generating significant amounts of data, did not have the functionality required to record, analyse and report actionable information which could be used as a basis and rationale for effective decision making.

In order to meet the Council’s objectives, SRA Information Technology provided its enterprise environmental information management platform, EnviroSys^tm, including the Emissions Module.

Outstanding Features >>

The Adelaide City Council’s EEMS solution:

• Captures and consolidates all energy related information from a variety of data sources (including the Building Management System) into a centralised EEMS data warehouse.
• Automatically generates the carbon emissions inventory for Council’s reporting and in accordance with the Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Guidelines (NGER).
•  Manages utility and billing information such as electricity, gas, petrol, diesel, LPG and water, including analysis and verification.
• Generates rich reports with complex, flexible, graphical and customisable reporting of data.
• Allows for accurate allocation of energy and water costs by cost centres and departments based on actual energy and water usage.
• Enables analysis of historical data in order to make predictions on future energy usage and identify key areas to target carbon emissions reduction efforts.

• Provides capacity for the usage and functionality of the system to grow and expand as the Council implements ongoing improvements in how energy usage is captured, monitored and managed throughout the corporation.

Comprehensive Benefits >>

Data centralisation plays an integral role in maintaining security and control. Data can be easily and quickly accessed when it is in a central location and is often referred to as the one source of the truth.

The solution allows the Council to report on how effectively the Carbon Neutral Action Plan projects are performing against key performance indicators.

An increase in analysis horsepower allows management to improve budgeting processes and overall financial management and decision making.

The Council opted for an external ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) web-enabled solution. This meant that the system was not implemented on the Council’s in-house IT infrastructure. However, its full capabilities could still be accessed over the Internet by simply using a web browser interface.

Automatic generation of reports saves time and frustration. Adelaide City Council is now able to automatically generate energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission reports at will and easily provide the required reports to regulatory bodies. Carbon offsets and green energy generation are also calculated and reported. The Council is able to compare emissions against baselines and forecast energy consumption and greenhouse gas output using modelling techniques.

Leading Edge Technology >>

SRA Information Technology develops and supports the award-winning EnviroSys^tm solution. EnviroSys^tm is an enterprise-wide application which offers users a configurable platform to collate, analyse, present and report environmental based information. It operates on a proactive basis by polling, auto loading and validating data. The web-based solution offers accessibility anywhere, anytime and is adaptable to new monitoring requirements. In addition to this, EnviroSys^tm provides for real-time analysis, dash boarding, scheduled reporting capabilities, integration of spatial and temporal data sets and informs when events are triggered. EnviroSys^tm solutions are configured ‘out of the box’ to cater for requirements in a variety of sectors including; mining, oil, gas, ports, pollutants, emissions, NPI reporting, NGER, energy, water, biodiversity, waste and all levels of government.

Further Information >>

Find out more about the council's Carbon Neutral Council Action Plan 2008-2012 or visit www.adelaidecitycouncil.com.

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