Affordable zero emission housing: Through life cost-benefit analysis to identify policy pathways for residential new-build in Melbourne, Australia

From an energy efficiency perspective, recent housing policy in Australia has focused on setting minimum energy standards in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Internationally, the UK and the USA have implemented definite policy targets of zero emission new housing by 2020. In Australia, the current minimum housing standard is '5 stars', increasing to '6 stars' by mid 2011. This policy direction has been strongly debated, and there remains uncertainty over the reliability of presented cost benefit data. A lack of empirical evidence has impeded the debate; particularly a lack of evidence on the through life costs and benefits of net zero and low emission housing options to private households and the costs and benefits of renewable energy technologies. This paper seeks to inform the present knowledge gap by applying cost benefit methods. AccuRate thermal simulation house modelling and lifecycle costing are applied to explore the costs and benefits across 50 year and 100 year time-horizons for net zero emission new house scenarios in Melbourne, Australia. Results show that net zero emission housing is economically viable at these time-horizons, with accumulated economic savings of a magnitude of 78% compared to a business as usual scenario over 50 years, with a 100% reduction of net energy emissions. Potential policy and regulatory pathways through which to achieve zero emission residential new-build based upon this empirical research are identified. This research provides empirical evidence to support stronger energy efficient housing standards and has significant implications for the future direction of housing standards in Australia. It argues that current housing standards policy is too narrow in focus, and that renewable energy aspects are presently overlooked.