Energy

The City of Sydney has teamed up with Australia’s major property industry group and a leading environmental organisation to push for a change to make electricity cheaper and cleaner. Recognising that local generation is a win for the environment, businesses and consumers, the Property Council of Australia and the Total Environment Centre have joined with the City to ask the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) to change the rules that govern the electricity market. Across Australia, a fundamental shift is occurring as more and more businesses and households are generating and exporting local electricity. Local generators range from office buildings with generators in the basement through to sugar mills making electricity from waste heat to residents with rooftop solar installations As well as saving money for themselves, local generation benefits all users by bringing down the costs of transporting power across long distances from remote power stations (can be more than half the cost of electricity bills for both households and businesses). Unfortunately, electricity rules in Australia have not kept pace with change. Under current rules, full network charges are still payable if an office tower with its own generator sends surplus power to the building next door or across the street. This fails to recognise the savings made from not using the long-distance networks of poles and wires. The proposed rule change would ensure local generators receive a credit for surplus power exported to the grid which reflects its economic value – increasing the financial return for local energy projects, making the electricity network more efficient and lowering electricity prices for all consumers over time. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said she was delighted to join the Property Council and the Total Environment Centre to push for a rule change that would encourage local power generation. “For years the City […]

A spectacular orb-shaped green energy storage facility being installed at one of Australia’s largest beef processing plants is helping to demonstrate how industry can profit from environmental initiatives.  The 6000m3  capacity flexible pvc-coated polyester fibre flexible storage tank collects biogas produced by the new Global Water Engineering COHRAL(TM)  Covered High Rate Anaerobic Lagoon being installed by CST Wastewater Solutions at Oakey Beef Exports on Queensland’s Darling Downs.  To be commissioned next year, the plant will extract green energy biogas (methane) from its waste water streams to replace millions of dollars worth of natural gas currently consumed at the abattoir.  The 26m high flexible storage tank – one of the world’s largest of its type – features resilient flexible double membrane storage so that gas produced by the COHRAL plant can be safely stored separately from the gas generator. Use of the separate flexible tank for gas storage provides security against leakage, with gas securely contained in the tank instead of being more loosely contained under lagoon covers.  The Sattler biogas storage design selected for Oakey Beef has been tested and proven over decades and now is an integral feature in the design of modern waste water treatment plants worldwide. They are engineered to be permanently gas-tight with high operational reliability and optimum safety.  “The safe, durable and environmentally harmonious COHRAL(TM)  technology deployed at Oakey Beef  can be widely applied worldwide to food, beverage and agricultural and primary processing plants. Oakey Beef Processing  and its owners Nippon Meat Packers have taken a far-sighted initiative that opens the way to cleaner, greener and more profitable industry performance,” says CST Wastewater Solutions Managing Director Mr Michael Bambridge, whose company represents the GWE COHRAL(TM  technology in Australia and New Zealand.  The COHRAL(TM  plant (with alternative view of the flexible storage tank above)  is expected […]

Mining operations and manufacturing facilities rely on the continued safe operation of vehicles and machinery to maintain profitability. Any equipment failure can be expensive in terms of lost production and cost of repairs. An estimate for the cost of lost production for a single dragline is $8000 per hour in Australia making any breakdown very costly when it might take weeks for a replacement part to be available. One way to minimise losses is to continually monitor plant and machinery using non-destructive testing (NDT) methods to ascertain component health, and monitor mechanisms for damage. Phased array ultrasound can enhance day to day inspection of surface mining equipment, thereby improving safety and keeping critical equipment operational. However, it is important that inspections are performed with minimal down time, so need to be planned and coordinated to ensure that critical parts are available when the maintenance is carried out. As part of the technical programme at the recent Australian Institute for Non-Destructive Testing (AINDT) Conference in Brisbane, Nicholas Bublitz, a Global Product Support Specialist with Olympus Scientific Solutions America (OSSA), reported on how the use of phased array ultrasonics could improve surface mine profitability. NDT is a group of techniques used to detect discontinuities in materials or components without causing damage or permanently altering the article being inspected. The AINDT Conference provided opportunities for NDT and maintenance professionals to meet and discuss the latest advances in NDT from around the world. Leading corporate members of the Institute, such as Olympus, displayed and demonstrated some of their innovative, precision analysis instrumentation and applications supporting NDT. “NDT methods like ultrasonics, eddy current and radiography—along with condition monitoring techniques such as oil and vibration analysis—play an important part in predictive maintenance programs and help reduce unexpected expenses,” Bublitz said. Outage and emergency repair costs can […]