Trigen for Sydney Town Hall

A low-carbon trigeneration plant is now providing power, heating and cooling for Sydney Town Hall and the neighbouring Town Hall House, home to 1500 City of Sydney employees.

Trigeneration is a low-carbon form of energy production, creating less than half the carbon emissions of the coal-fired plants that generate around 80% of Sydney’s electricity.

The plant has been gradually phased in over the last three months and is now fully supplying the City’s civic buildings on working weekdays from 7 am to 10 pm.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the 1400 kW system was expected to cut carbon emissions by more than 40,000 tonnes over its 30-year lifetime, equivalent to 1500 small cars.

“Installing trigeneration power at Town Hall is already helping us reduce our reliance on coal-generated energy hauled in from the Hunter Valley and allows us to power, heat and cool our buildings from a clean, local supply,” the Lord Mayor said.

“Decentralised plants like this one offer the grid more reliability.

“As well as meeting the weekday energy needs of Sydney Town Hall and Town Hall House, the rooftop generation plant is ready to export significant amounts of electricity to the grid. This could help manage peak power demands and defer costly investment in electricity network upgrades.

“Trigeneration is part of our practical portfolio of sustainability programs to cut carbon emissions by 70% based on 2006 levels, along with building retrofits for energy efficiency, installing solar panels on the buildings we own and offsetting carbon emissions.

“We’re leading by example. The City is Australia’s first carbon-neutral government and we’ve already reduced emissions in our own buildings and operations by 27% on 2006 levels,” Moore said.

The City of Sydney received a grant of $3.05 million from the federal government’s (now closed) Community Energy Efficiency Program for the trigeneration project.

The system was designed and installed by building services contractor AE Smith.

The plant uses seven 200 kW capstone micro-turbines that can each turn down to a tenth of their total power output, meaning they can follow the electrical demand in the building during both summer and winter months.

Trigeneration is an efficient decentralised energy technology whereby electricity is produced close to the point of use, avoiding the requirement for long-distance power delivery. Replacing coal-fired electricity reduces emissions from connected buildings and decreases the need for upgrades to the NSW electricity grid.