Role of financial mechanisms for accelerating the rate of water and energy efficiency retrofits in Australian public buildings: Hybrid Bayesian Network and System Dynamics modelling approach

Abstract

In Australia, the government spending on public buildings' energy and water consumption is considerable; however the building energy and water retrofit market potential has been diminished by a number of barriers, especially financial. In contrast, in other advanced economies there are several reported financing strategies that have been shown to accelerate retrofit projects implementation. In this study, a coupled Bayesian Network-System Dynamics model was developed with the core aim to assess the likely influence of those novel financing options and procurement procedures on public building retrofit outcomes scenarios in the Australian context. A particular case-study focusing on Australian public hospitals was showcased as an example in this paper. Stakeholder engagement was utilised to estimate likely preferences and to conceptualise causal relationships of model parameters. The scenario modelling showed that a revolving loan fund supporting an energy performance contracting procurement procedure was preferred. Subsequently, the specific features of this preferred framework were optimised to yield the greatest number of viable retrofit projects over the long term. The results indicated that such a financing scheme would lead to substantial abatement of energy and water consumption, as well as carbon emissions. The strategic scenario analysis approach developed herein provides evidence-based support to policy-makers advocating novel financing and procurement models for addressing a government's sustainability agenda in a financially responsible and netpositive manner.

From Thoughts to Actions: The Importance of Climate Change Education in Enhancing Students’ Self-Efficacy

“…The lack of action being taken to insulate or mitigate risks associated with climate change from a policy and educational perspective is a worrisome trend. It is well known that with proper organisation and a concerted effort, economic benefits would be achievable through the implementation of appropriate sustainable, environmentally friendly policies and city planning (Bertone et al, 2018;Hunt & Watkiss, 2011). However, it could be that wealthier nations, while being aware of the ongoing and future risk of climate change, are blinded by their economic prosperity and collectively believe that they are better equipped to deal with climate-related disasters as they become more prevalent in the future (Lo & Chow, 2015).…”

Government championed strategies to overcome the barriers to public building energy efficiency retrofit projects

“…A review of different available financing and procurement mechanisms for energy retrofitting projects are available in [26]. Amongst the different financing mechanisms available, the revolving loan fund was found to be the most suitable funding method for public building energy retrofits [53]. Also, governments should reward those departments and agency that achieve mandated building retrofit targets.…”

A Holistic Framework for Supporting Maintenance and Asset Management Life Cycle Decisions for Power Systems

“…Through such frameworks and processes, organisations would possess a platform that supports coherence and repeatability of analysis, irrespective of whom As impressive as the tremendous growth in the recognition of industrial CBM seems, the guidelines of the recently launched asset management standards -ISO 55000 series (initially a publicly available specification published by the British Standards Institution in 2004) in 2014 makes it crystal clear that asset performance and condition data alone are no longer sufficient for making robust MAM engineering decisions in capital intensive sectors such as power [24]. This is based on the premise that the role of MAM is changing from the classical "problem-fixer" to a very important aspect of asset life cycle management through the incorporation of the following key themes [24]: Unfortunately, despite widespread consensus that MAM is a necessity for the cost-effectiveness of any plant, some decision-makers within several organisations still view the maintenance function as a mere cost centre or necessary evil [23,24], which is perhaps why maintenance as a function has struggled to attain the same level of recognition attributed to other vital plant functions such as finance [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], production planning [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], marketing [41][42][43][44], etc. Searches within several top percentile energy-related journals clearly show a contrariety between the scanty number of academic publications advocating MAM optimisation and the abundant resources on topics such as energy policy and finance.…”