Residents of 48 Maroondah homes are now better equipped to cut their greenhouse gas emissions following the ‘You Have the Power: Save Energy’ home assessment program.

‘You Have the Power: Save Energy’ was run by environmental consultants Going Solar, and was designed to educate residents about simple and inexpensive ways to reduce household greenhouse gas emissions.

Maroondah was one of three municipalities involved in the program, along with Manningham and Boroondara.

Councillor Alex Makin said the program involved a 45 minute home visit to assess household energy consumption and provided home energy saving kits and advice on how to reduce household energy consumption by 15 per cent.

“Each household involved in the program completed a survey that enabled the assessor to get a snapshot of the dwelling, as well as providing data to contribute to an overview of energy consumption across the three municipalities,” said Cr Makin.

“The results of these surveys show that greenhouse gas emissions are higher in winter, due to increased use of electric slab heating, electric space heaters, electric hot water services and additional light use,” said Cr Makin.

“The average electricity consumption during winter across the three municipalities was 17.17 kWh per day, with a significant difference between the lowest consumption rate and the highest,” said Cr Makin.

“The response we have had from the community has been very positive and participants of the program have been really interested to know exactly where they are consuming energy in their homes. Advice provided through the visits has shown participants that there are many simple and effective ways to reduce their energy consumption without undue expenses,” said Cr Makin.

The installation of the home refit kits in each of the 144 households across the three municipalities is expected to save 108 tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. A 15 per cent reduction in emissions, on average, across all of these households would result in 259 tonnes being saved per year. This is the equivalent of taking 57 cars off the road.

The home energy saving kits included a shower timer, two flow restrictors for taps, compact flow lights and a thermometer.

The program also received funding from the Australian Greenhouse Office.