Decentralised development: the Ecovillage at Currumbin

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Author(s)
Hood, B
Gardner, E
Barton, R
Gardiner, R
Beal, Cara
Hyde, R
Walton, C
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2010
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The Ecovillage at Currumbin is a 144 lot development in the Gold Coast hinterland which employs a range of strategies to enhance the sustainability of the community. All the water was supplied by a combination of large (= 20 kL) rainwater tanks and recycled water from a clusterscale sewage treatment/water reclamation plant. Despite the high specific energy use of the household scale rainwater pumps, the overall household electricity use was less than a third of that of an average Qld home. This factor reduced to a sixth when total energy (electricity and gas) was compared between housing types Energy use of ...
View more >The Ecovillage at Currumbin is a 144 lot development in the Gold Coast hinterland which employs a range of strategies to enhance the sustainability of the community. All the water was supplied by a combination of large (= 20 kL) rainwater tanks and recycled water from a clusterscale sewage treatment/water reclamation plant. Despite the high specific energy use of the household scale rainwater pumps, the overall household electricity use was less than a third of that of an average Qld home. This factor reduced to a sixth when total energy (electricity and gas) was compared between housing types Energy use of the sewage treatment and reclamation plant was = 1.1 kWh/kL, less than that of an equivalent centralised plant (e.g. Pimpama Coomera) reflecting the low energy systems used to reduce organic load (septic tanks, recirculating textile filter). With some minor optimisation, we believe the Ecovillage could be the first mainstream energy and water neutral community in Australia
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View more >The Ecovillage at Currumbin is a 144 lot development in the Gold Coast hinterland which employs a range of strategies to enhance the sustainability of the community. All the water was supplied by a combination of large (= 20 kL) rainwater tanks and recycled water from a clusterscale sewage treatment/water reclamation plant. Despite the high specific energy use of the household scale rainwater pumps, the overall household electricity use was less than a third of that of an average Qld home. This factor reduced to a sixth when total energy (electricity and gas) was compared between housing types Energy use of the sewage treatment and reclamation plant was = 1.1 kWh/kL, less than that of an equivalent centralised plant (e.g. Pimpama Coomera) reflecting the low energy systems used to reduce organic load (septic tanks, recirculating textile filter). With some minor optimisation, we believe the Ecovillage could be the first mainstream energy and water neutral community in Australia
View less >
Journal Title
Water
Volume
Sept
Issue
2010
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2010. The attached file is posted here with permission of the copyright owners for your personal use only. No further distribution permitted.For information about this journal please refer to the journal's website. The online version of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License, available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.1/au/
Subject
Environmental Management
Environmental Technologies