AEHRC wins award for keeping homes cool

Our Smarter Safer Homes technology came home with two Premier’s Sustainability Awards.

It’s getting hot in here.

But we’re working with collaborators to help keep people’s houses safer in the heat.  

And we’ve just won 2 Premier’s Sustainability Awards for our Climate Safe Rooms collaborative project.  

• Winner: Healthy and Fair society: Community Champion Award   
• Winner: Premier’s Regional Recognition Award   

These awards acknowledge the Victorians who are working towards a fairer and more sustainable future through climate-friendly innovations. The collaborative project aimed to assist vulnerable households in the Barwon South-West Region as well as promote the future of energy efficiency and quality.  

With funding from the Victorian Government’s Climate Change Innovation Grant, we retrofitted rooms with our Smarter Safer Homes technology to monitor temperature, humidity, and activity in the rooms.   

Vulnerable households, with a resident at risk of illness or death from climate extremes, were chosen for the pilot program. One room in each home was retrofitted to provide a climate-controlled respite for residents during summer and winter weather extremes.  

Some of the energy saving features of the retrofit in homes were solar/renewable power, high efficiency air conditioning and other structural features.  

These features were successful in increasing the overall comfort and health of residents, as well as leading to substantial energy savings and reduced gas consumption across the households.  

Together with our project partners Geelong Sustainability in partnership with the City of Greater Geelong, Ecomaster, and Uniting we are using digital technology to help to people who were vulnerable to climate change, such as those living with chronic diseases.