ACT Apartment Decarbonisation | Centre for Energy Systems

Project overview

Duration: 12 months (2025 - 2026)

Budget: $750,000

Contact: Dr Wendy Russell, Research Fellow, ACES and Dr Michael Thomas, Research Engineer, ACES

Funded by: ACT Government

Case study selection: Get involved!

As part of this research project, we invite apartment executive committees in the ACT to express interest in participating as case study apartment complexes. This expression of interest is via an online survey, which will also collect data for the research.

More information is provided by following the link:
https://anu.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zzBLpw7DyqGgn4

About

This project will explore challenges and pathwaysfor apartment electrification and decarbonisation in the ACT. Of all buildings in the Territory,existing multi-owned apartments are beset with the most significant technical, social and governance challenges to electrification andthe transition away from gas. There is a need to understand these challenges and their implications for the range of affected people and decision makers, in order to develop feasible transition pathways.

Transition pathways require support from effective policy and regulatory levers, and technical and social innovations. The challenges have technical (energy system capacity and coordination), economic (capital investment, distributive equity), social (household choices, collective capacity and decision-making) and political (policy, rules and regulations) dimensions, underpinned by decarbonisation targets. Understanding of these dimensions is needed along with ways of exploring their interactions, tensions and synergies.

Identifying dimensions involved in, and the likely pathways towards, further electrification and decarbonisation will be complex and requires staged research and use of multiple methods. The project will extend ACES work on multi-energy system modelling for apartment buildings and integrate it with social science research and policy analysis. Data on heating, hot water, solar generation and electric vehicles will be integrated into models that consider technical possibilities, requirements, coordination and costs. We will combine modelling with social research insights into the experiences, aspirations, barriers and concerns of apartment residents, owners, managers and stakeholders. We will also analyse the current policy and regulatory environment and its interactions with apartment transitions.

This project will develop novel ways to integrate social data and modelling so that what is modelled incorporates more considerations, and aligns with real-world decision-making and change. This project will provide insights, models, scenarios and tools with which to further explore transition pathways for apartments that meet ambitious ACT targets in just and responsible ways.

Outputs from this project will be of use to owners' corporations and other relevant decision-makers.

Apartments glossary

ANU	Australian National University.
Apartment	A self-contained dwelling within a multi-story building or complex. Apartments are usually strata-titled, meaning people own the individual units but share common property with other owners.
Apartment complex	A set of apartments under the same strata title. Some apartment complexes are a single multi-story building. Others may comprise more than one multi-story building.
BSGIP	Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program. In 2024, BSGIP merged with the 100% Renewable Energy research group (RE100) to form ACES.
CER	Customer energy resources - refers to small-scale energy resources owned by customers, which can produce, store or vary how they use energy. There are new forms of CER such as rooftop solar, batteries and electric vehicles and more traditional assets such as hot water heaters and pool pumps. CER is a subset of DER.
DER	Distributed energy resources - assets or systems at the distribution network level that generate, flexibly consume, or store energy. They can be located on private, commercial or public property. DER is a superset of CER.
Decarbonisation	The process of reducing carbon emissions. In relation to built environments, decarbonisation can be achieved by measures to shift from fossil fuel energy sources such as gas to renewable energy such as solar, measures to increase energy efficiency, and other changes to reduced energy use overall.
DNSP	Distributed network service provider. This is the company that owns and manages the poles and wires of the electricity network.
Electrification	The process of shifting appliances and processes from fossil fuel energy sources such as gas to electricity, with the assumption that the electricity will be sourced from renewable energy.
Embedded networks	Sometimes apartments have an electrical system that is called an embedded network. In embedded networks ‘electrical wiring is configured in such a way to allow the owner of the site to sell energy to all the tenants and residents based there’. Embedded networks customers \| Australian Energy Regulator (AER)
EV	Electric vehicle. An electric vehicle is one that uses batteries as a power source for driving the car. These types of cars need to be plugged in to recharge batteries.
Executive committee	An elected/voluntary group within a strata-titled apartment building that is responsible for decision-making about common areas and resources in the apartment complex. They are responsible for communicating with and representing owners (and residents?) in the complex.
Governance	This refers to the rules, organisations and instruments involved in decision-making. Government is a particular form of governance, but governance can involve various organisations beyond government. In relation to apartments, governance can refer to decision-making within the complex under strata rule, but can also refer to the wider regulatory and legal frameworks under which apartment decision-making takes place.
IEP	ACT 2024-2030 The Integrated Energy Plan
ISP	AEMO’s Integrated System Plan (ISP) is a roadmap for the transition of the National Electricity Market (NEM) power system, with a clear plan for essential infrastructure that will meet future energy needs.
Maximum demand	The highest instantaneous energy consumption observed in a particular area or network segment in a given period (typically yearly)
Negative demand / Minimum demand	The lowest instantaneous energy consumption or highest instantaneous generation observed in a particular area or network segment in a given period (typically yearly).
NEM	National Energy Market. The energy market covering South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.
PV	Photo voltaic (solar power).
VPP	Virtual power plants - are clusters of energy sources working together via coordination platforms and systems, to provide energy supply (most often to an electricity network). They can include multiple (and many) energy sources and do not need to have energy sources located together. These varied energy sources are often called DER.