Ambulance Victoria to Improve Building Performance and Substantially Lower Energy Consumption

Brief client profile

Ambulance Victoria (AV) is a body corporate established under the Ambulance Services Act 1986 and reports through the Department of Health and Human Services to the Minister for Health. Ambulance Victoria provides skilled pre-hospital emergency health care and patient transport services for all members of the community and its operational area is serviced by strategically placed ambulance branches.

The problem

Ambulance Victoria recognises that climate change is not only an environmental and economic issue, but climate change is also a health issue. In order to reduce the impact on the climate, Ambulance Victoria has a vision to source 100% of its power from renewable sources by 2025 and has begun purchasing Green Power to meet this goal.

In 2020, Ambulance Victoria and Ecosave undertook projects across many sites to implement energy conservation measures including solar PV and energy efficiency activities.

What was recommended

After considering multiple Battery options currently available in the market, Ecosave proposed to install a 12kWh Sonnen Battery systems, based on their Superior Performance and Cost- effectiveness. Ecosave was awarded a project to install a battery storage system to reduce and manage AV’s energy consumption at Sebastopol Ambulance Station and reduce the cost of future green Power Purchases.

Project Features

•Capability of 10,000 life cycles with a 20-year design life, which is double the average design life of other batteries. This significantly reduces any future maintenance costs that would arise from replacing batteries in the future.

•The Lithium-Iron-Phosphate configuration is much safer, which is a greatly reduced fire risk than Lithium ion batteries. This battery is safe enough to install indoors, which is common in Europe, although Australian standards still restrict installation to outdoor areas.

•Sonnen constantly research and test the best batteries available to use in their product – they are not restricted to their own manufactured batteries.

•Whilst Sonnen batteries are 30% heavier and larger, their modular design makes it safer to install, maintain and if necessary, re-locate.