What does it mean to use 0.05 Petajoules of energy?
The Energy Efficient Communities Program has been rolled out throughout Australia. The program includes several options for funding, depending on your business size. One option offered is for high energy using businesses with more than 0.05 PJ (petajoules) of energy consumption per year. The program offers a co-contributed grant of up to $25,000 to improve a businesses energy efficiency.
This article will demonstrate what energy consumption is required to meet this 0.05 PJ requirement and provide useful conversion factors and simple energy calculations.
- Energy Types
The eligibility criteria states that you must ‘have a net energy consumption of more than 0.05 PJ per year’. However, this amount is not limited to just electrical energy consumption, so it is important to consider all forms of energy used at your site! This includes potential energy consumption from diesel or LPG sources. This is particularly important if your business includes in-house logistics/transport.
- What is a Petajoule?
‘Peta’ is a prefix used to quantify a large amount of a specific unit (as 1015 units). Therefore term ‘petajoule (PJ)’ is used to represent one quadrillion joules (or 1 x 1015 Joules).
- Conversion to Other Energy Types
Energy in kWh: 1 kJ is equivalent to 0.000278 kWh (or 2.78 x 10-4), so 0.05 PJ is approximately 13.9 million kWh (or 1.39 x 107 kWh).
As a quick check, you can review your total annual energy cost. A business using 0.05 PJ will likely have an annual energy bill cost of at least $1.3 million (assuming a peak cost of $0.13/kWh, off-peak cost of $0.08/kWh, a peak/off-peak split of approximately 40%/60%). Please note this is excluding demand, supply, metering, and other costs.
Litres of Diesel: Diesel fuel offers around 35.9 MJ per litre. If we then compare this to 0.05 PJ, we get 1,400,000 litres (L) of diesel annually for 0.05 PJ of energy.
Litres of LPG: LPG offers around 25 MJ per litre of gas. This equates to 2,000,000 litres (L) of LPG annually.
For more information on this program, visit the Australia government’s website at https://business.gov.au/Grants-and-Programs/Energy-Efficient-Communities-Program-High-Energy-Using-Businesses
Feel free to give us a call if you require more assistance with determining your eligibility for this program!