Phase 2 in Cooling a City Block Key Findings

 This project entitled “Cooling a City Block Project Phase 2: Data monitoring and reporting"  was supported by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.
Download the report here

In addition to this, we work in conjunction with UTS Capstone Students, find a summary of the projects here.
Contact us for full details

Research Area: Home Energy Use Response to Ambient Temperature:

·         Home energy use increases with extreme cold or hot temperatures. Our findings show that this occurs with and without air conditioning use.

·         We found that a single house can spend 28 cents more on a summer day if its located on a street with a peak temperature increased by only 4⁰C.

·         If this is applied to all of Sydney’s homes, then this accounts for an extra $440,000 in additional energy use in just one day.

What does this mean?

We need desperately need to cool our city’s roads to cut electricity costs!

How can we achieve this?

Lighter Coloured Roads:

In our studies we found that the street with the highest albedo had the lowest temperatures, at 5⁰C cooler than the ambient temperature.

The pale surface has a higher albedo and reflectivity, and higher rate of evapotranspiration, allowing for cooler surface temperatures. There are other benefits of pale surfaces including better illumination and longer pavement life due to reduced expansion and contraction of materials.

Shading our roads

We found that surface level temperatures in the shade were on average 9⁰C cooler than those in the sun. Buckland had the darkest pavement, but the coolest ambient summer temperatures while Myrtle St had the highest. Why? Shading! Buckland had 64% tree cover compared with Myrtle St at just 6%.

We are currently developing our design of Street Gardens designed to irrigate plants using other-wise wasted storm water. These will aid the local flora to flourish and increase canopy cover in our streets, thereby cooling them. We have a preliminary design installed in Oxford St, Newtown. The installation has been a success and we have plans to install many more in our city.

Street Coolers Data Sheets

To download our data for this phase, see the links below:

• Newtown home energy monitoring: hourly energy usage recordings for 9 Newtown homes and a local school
• Newtown weather station data: two weather stations placed in the Newtown block each recording temperature, humidity, wind speed and rainfall at 15 minute intervals. Station labeled 'House' is placed in the backyard of 13 Oxford Street, and the station labeled 'School' is placed next to the pavement on Oxford Street in front of The Athena School.
• Redfern and Chippendale weather station data: temperature readings every 15 minutes from three weather stations located on Myrtle Street, Buckland Street, and Wells Street
• Continuous spot temperature logger temperature data: temperature readings recorded every 15 minutes; several loggers are located at road level, 2 metres above ground, and under soil for Oxford Street, Albermarle Street, and Myrtle Street
• Road surface temperatures for Oxford Street (between Fitzroy Ln and Turtle Ln), Albermarle Street (at intersection with Oxford St), Myrtle Street (intersection of Myrtle and Abercrombie), Buckland Street (between Levey St and O'Connor St), and Wells Street (between George St and Renwick St)

The additional documents below deal with Urban Heat Island Effect and sustainable living in a city. They include both research conducted by Street Coolers and practical resources that can help you cool your streets. You will find summaries of various articles, explanations of tools that measure the effects of climate change, lesson plans and much more.

Additionally, Street Coolers has obtained legal advice about generating clean solar electricity with funds provided to Street Coolers by the NSW Government Office of Environment and Heritage under its Climate Change Fund. These funds are also assisting Street Coolers to obtain the data we are sharing.

Urban Heat Island Effect & cooling cities

• Urban Heat Island Effect
• Why cool our streets
• Planning for coolers cities
• The benefits of concrete pavements
• The use of reflective and permeable pavements as a potential practice for heat island mitigation and stormwater management
• Temperature response to future urbanization and climate change
• Micro Urban Climatic Thermal Emissions
• Climate adaptation in the energy industry

Off-grid and sustainable living

• The basics of going off-grid
• Five tips for lower bills and Q&A for going off-grid
• Energy efficient buildings and property value
• Repower One
• Victorian organic resource recovery strategy
• Living Building Challenge
• FAQ - no up front costs for solar electricity
• FAQ - hot water systems buying guide
• Hidden benefits of electric vehicles for addressing climate change
• Our Energy Future - Renewable Energy Master Plan
• An ecological footprint study of NSW and Sydney

Lesson plans

• What happens to the things we throw away (5-10 years old)
• What did I consume and discard yesterday (8-12 years old)
• Design a solution for a local problem (12-15 years old)
   

Legal advice

• On-site legal advice
• Street Coolers Regulatory Roadmap

Street Coolers documents

• Street Coolers Cooling a City Block Project: Phase Two Final Report
• Water analysis of Newtown block
• Marrickville environmental indicators
• Efergy Engage Hub Kit
• Wirriga community weather station
• NSW Climate Change Fund 2014-15 Annual Report: The NSW Government’s Climate Change Fund supports households, businesses, communities and government agencies reduce carbon emissions, adapt to a changing climate, and support investment and growth in the low-carbon economy. You can read about Street Coolers and our initiatives on page 11 of this report.