In the drive towards a zero-carbon future, Australian housing has an important role to play. Australia’s 11 million homes are responsible for 8.6% of Australia’s total energy consumption, 24% of Australia’s electricity use, and 10% of Australia’s total carbon emissions.
Although building regulation ensures newer homes meet minimum energy efficiency standards, many older homes perform poorly. Most Australian homes were built before minimum energy efficiency standards were introduced. It is estimated that these homes would have an average thermal energy rating of just 2.5 Stars (out of 10) under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).
Barriers to upgrading home energy efficiency include a lack of awareness by many homeowners of their home’s current status, and of the possibilities for, and benefits of, upgrading. Furthermore, there is a lack of accessible and easy-to-use tools for assessing current dwelling performance, identifying upgrade options, and deciding which option would have the biggest impact.
CSIRO has developed a tool, RapidRateTM, that quickly estimates the energy efficiency of a dwelling’s thermal shell (star rating), and also estimates energy consumption, energy generation, and carbon emissions using a relatively small number of inputs. It was developed using machine learning techniques and trained using NatHERS certificate data.
This paper describes RapidRateTM and uses case studies to demonstrate how it can be used to explore thermal shell and major appliance upgrade options for individual dwellings and groups of dwellings.