Increasingly, Australian property developers and owners are seeking to incorporate cogeneration into their existing buildings and new developments.

Cogeneration (combined heat and power) and trigeneration (combined cooling, heat and power) offer Australia significant environmental and economic benefits in the short and long term. Cogeneration (including trigeneration) technology lends itself to deployment in Australian buildings to supply local electricity, heat and/or cooling.

Climateworks commenced the ‘Unlocking barriers to cogeneration’ project, with Seed Advisory and the Property Council of Australia, in 2011 to design solutions to address these barriers. Its research and workshops led to a report recommending rule changes to the National Electricity Market (NEM) that make it easier to install and operate co/trigeneration above 5MW.

In April 2014 the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) adopted these recommendations making it simpler to connect clean energy to the national electricity grid, with the rule changes taking effect from October 2014.