Glossary

ACCU: Australian Carbon Credit Unit. An ACCU represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e) stored or avoided by a project. 

ACP: Accredited Certificate Provider, an individual company that is authorised by the NSW Government’s Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to create energy savings certificates to trade for financial incentives. 

AER: The Australian Energy Regulator makes decisions that promote efficient investment in, and efficient operation and use of, energy services for the long-term interests of energy consumers.

Alternate energy: Sources of energy that are an alternative to using fossil fuels or nuclear power. (i.e. Solar)

Azimuth: The direction the solar panels face. Eg. 0 degrees is true north, 90 degrees is due east.

CBUS: Lighting that can be automated, switched on/off or dimmed from a device, specially made by Clipsal.  

Certificates: These vary between state run and federal run schemes, but it is generally a unit of measurement to indicate an amount of energy saved, that can be traded or sold for a market value.

CEC: The Clean Energy Council is the peak body for the clean energy industry in Australia. Its member have to agree to a code of conduct and if they meet its standards they can become accredited installers and retailers.

CER: Clean Energy Regulator – The Clean Energy Regulator is the Government body respon​sible for administering legislation to reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of clean energy.

CO2e: a metric measure used to compare emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global warming potential by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of CO2.

Gj: Gigajoule, a unit of energy used to measure electricity and gas. Often used in the South Australian energy schemes. 

Decommissioning: Decommissioning ensures that the old system cannot be used again. This may involve piercing a hole in the tank for hot water upgrades, or taking the unit to a recycler or scrap metal dealer for lighting. Simply disconnecting the old unit is not considered decommissioning as it could be reconnected again.

DPIE: Department of Planning, Industry & Environment.

Driver: For light emitting diodes (LEDs), a device that regulates the voltage and current powering the source. Similar to a transformer, but specifically for LEDs.

Energy efficiency: using less energy to perform the same job.

ESC: Energy Savings Certificate (for NSW schemes), or Essential Services Commission (the Victorian schemes regulator) 

ESS: The NSW Energy Savings Scheme, providing financial incentives to install energy-efficient equipment and appliances in NSW households and businesses. 

EV Council: The Australian Electric Vehicle Council launched in May 2017. It represents its members involved in producing, powering and supporting electric vehicles. Its mission is “to accelerate the electrification of road transport for a more sustainable and prosperous Australia”.

Fluorescent lamp: A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor coating on the inside of the lamp to glow.

Gimbal fitting: Adjustable/tiltable downlights. This refers to the fitting, a gimbal is a downlight, but it could be any lamp (i.e LED, Halogen or fluoro).

Halogen lamp: Sometimes called a ‘Tungsten Lamp’ is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed into a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a small amount of a halogen such as iodine or bromine.

Heat Pump: a device that circulates refrigerant through a cycle of condensation and evaporation to convert energy stored in the air into efficient heating. 

HEER: Home Energy Efficiency Retrofits is a method to calculate saving from a range of household and small business energy efficiency upgrades, run by the NSW Government with financial incentives available for various upgrades. 

Highbays: A lighting system with luminaires of the direct or semidirect type, mounted high above the floor; used principally in industrial installations. 

HVAC: Heating, ventilation and air conditioning. 

HWS: Hot Water System/Service

IHEAB: Installation of High Efficiency Appliance for Business, a method of the ESS run by the NSW Government with financial incentives available for the installation of high efficiency appliances for businesses.

Incandescent lamp: An electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows.

Inverter: A piece of equipment in every solar system that safely converts DC power (direct current) to AC power (alternating current). 

kW: Kilowatt, a unit of energy commonly used as a billing measurement for electricity. Often used in Victoria, New South Wales and federal energy saving schemes. 1kW = 1000 W

kWh: The standard unit for electricity usage.

LED: Light Emitting Diode, generally the most efficient lighting type.

LGC: Large-scale Generation Certificates are renewable energy certificates offered under the federal Renewable Energy Target (RET) for large scale energy saving projects generating >100kW of energy. LGCs are created and traded until 2030, and are created by verifying the amount of energy generated by your system.

LPG: Liquid propane gas. Bottled gas (not metered). These tend to power gas systems in more regional areas where there aren’t gas lines.

Lumen: A way to measure brightness/the lighting output of a globe, this is separate to the colour temperature. 

Metal halide lamp: A metal-halide lamp is an electrical lamp that produces light by an electric arc through a gaseous mixture of vaporized mercury and metal halides (compounds of metals with bromine or iodine). It is a type of high-intensity discharge (HID) gas discharge lamp.

MW: 100,000 watts

Par38 / Parabolic reflector lamp: PAR 38 is a type of halogen or LED light bulb. There are two definitions for the acronym PAR, but both describe the same thing. One is a parabolic aluminized reflector. The other is a pressed-glass aluminized reflector. These are commonly found in twin fittings near gardens/garages in homes.

Payback period: The length of time it takes to earn the cost of the upgrade back in energy saved.

PDRS: Peak Demand Reduction Scheme, a NSW strategy to reduce peak demand for energy through financial incentives. The outlined peak period is currently defined as 2:30pm-8:30pm AEDT from the 1st of November to the 31st of March each year.

Plug base: When a light and it’s fitting + transformer are plugged into a power point in the roof space, rather than being wired into the mains.

PRC: Peak Reduction Certificate, a certificate created through various upgrades and activities within the PDRS

Rebate: An Energy Rebate provides a partial refund to customers who replace existing inefficient products, and sometimes when they install new, energy efficient technology. This can be provided in an upfront discount, or as ‘delayed cash’

REES: See REPS.

REPS: (formally REES) The Retailer Energy Productivity Scheme is an SA government initiative to encourage households and businesses to reduce energy consumption and costs, often with financial incentives for energy saving and energy efficiency projects.

RET: Renewable Energy Target scheme encourages electricity generation from renewable sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector, run by the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. 

Reticulated gas: Metered Gas connection to the home or dwelling, i.e. underground gas line, more commonly found in metro areas.

Ripple injection: Ripple injection load control is a communication method used extensively by electricity distributors to turn on and off loads such as off-peak hot water systems and street lighting. This can cause flickering in LED downlights on a dimmer due to their low wattage during those times. Ripple injection only occurs in NSW.

SEC: Smart Energy Council – The Smart Energy Council is the peak industry body for the solar, storage and smart energy management in Australia.

Solar PV: Solar photovoltaics are panels that convert light into electricity. 

STC: Small-scale Technology Certificates are generated under the federal Renewable Energy Target (RET) for eligible energy saving activities, and are used to offset some or all of the cost of an energy upgrade project. 

Tariff: In energy, a tariff refers to how you are charged for electricity or gas usage – the variable part of your bill. It is the amount you pay for each unit of gas or electricity consumed, usually listed as cents per kilowatt hour (c/kWh) for electricity use and cents per megajoule (c/MJ) for gas.

Transformer: A transformer can convert the 120v electrical currently supplied from your house down to the 12v/other voltage needed for individual light fittings. Common with halogen downlights.

VEEC: Victorian Energy Efficiency Certificates are created by measuring the energy savings from the upgrade you are undertaking, in MW. The MW reduction is then converted into C02 tonnes and multiplied by 9.9 years to determine the number of certificates generated by the energy saving activity, which is then used to offset some or all of the cost of the energy upgrade project.

VEET: Victorian Energy Efficiency Target

VEU: Victorian Energy Upgrades Program, run by the Victorian Government’s Essential Services Commission, offering financial incentives to make energy efficiency projects more affordable, and to reduce long term energy consumption.

ZERL: Zoned Energy Rating Labels provide consumers and advisors with information relating to product energy efficiency and other key performance attributes relevant to their location.