Join your neighbours to learn how to reduce your energy costs.

Day 1. 17 May at 2 - 4pm.

The presenter is Gayle Russell. You will be given information to think about when deciding to make your own home more energy efficient and more comfortable to live in. Many of these steps are easy to do and cost you little. Gayle has carried out these modifications on a number of houses which she has lived in. She now lives in a sustainable home and has run many workshops in this area. You are invited to bring a sketch plan of your house with the North orientation marked. An estimate of your average energy usage is also useful to know.

A speaker from the Lake Macquarie Council will let us know what the Council is working on in this area.

In the second part of the session the presenter is David Dungavell who works with Zapcat who will introduce the benefits and cost savings of home electrification, and why each household should do it now. There are pitfalls and traps when doing this, and how best these can be avoided. There are some very useful websites which can help when electrifying your home and Zapcat in particular is a very useful free site which can guide you in this process.

Day 2. 31 May at 2 - 4pm.

The first presenter is Andy Leadbeatter. He is very experienced in the solar installation industry and has worked in this area for 15 years. He manages Reclaim Solar Energy who design, supply and install solar solutions in Newcastle and for a wide surrounding area.

He will discuss the installation of solar panels:

How to find a good installer
The improvements in the products
The factors to be taken into account when designing a system
How reliable are the installs
What you should expect from your installer in the areas of service and support.

The second presenter is Alec Roberts who works with CLEANaS which is the Clean Energy Association of Newcastle and surrounds. CLEANaS aims to encourage the uptake of renewable energy generation technologies in Newcastle and surrounds.

He will discuss the advantages of installing Batteries, particularly for homes which have, or are about to install solar systems. Other factors will be the size of batteries, where they will be installed, the lifetime of batteries, the features of batteries and the changes which are occurring with technologies. There are also a number of Government rebate programs which aim to reduce the initial cost of installing batteries.