Hector Gardens

The Challenge

Hector Gardens is one of Perth’s original apartment buildings, constructed in the early 1960’s for the Empire Games before being converted to a Strata Scheme. Due to its age, the electrical infrastructure and meter network was operating well beyond its intended lifecycle. The Strata Manager was aware of the infrastructure issues due to increasing reliability issues and costs to maintain the status quo.

They were keen to facilitate a solution to upgrade the infrastructure and concurrently create a revenue stream for the scheme to fund the project. EnergyTec produced a feasibility and a preliminary project plan, recommending re-configuration to a privately- owned embedded metering network billing structure along with the replacement of the antiquated infrastructure. This meant replacement and upgrade of the electrical infrastructure and meter network assets and concurrently guiding the strata scheme to reconfigure the asset to procure better electrical supply pricing to reduce costs and align with the Synergy A1 tariff (which is the same as the owner occupier or tenant living in a green title property in WA) to generate income.

The project scope included an engineering review to determine the formal scope of the upgrade works and the costs required to ensure compliant upgrade to IEC and Australian Standards. The outcomes equated to a 4.73-year simple return on investment (ROI) payback. EnergyTec provided a guide for Embedded Network Conversions to assist the scheme and the Strata Manager to prepare the required Bylaws to comply with the Strata Act. In addition, a Solar Feasibility was provided to quantify the appropriate system scale and the ROI.

Our Solution

EnergyTec provided the relevant By Laws, an Infrastructure Contract and a hire purchase agreement to fund the project, while enabling the scheme to retain ownership of the infrastructure and revenue generating (i.e. meter) assets once paid back. We also provided a Services Level Agreement for the ongoing reading, reconciliation and lot owner billing services. The Strata Manager facilitated the implementation of the By Laws and the AGM approvals and the scheme signed-off the project.

The project was mobilised and provisioning for future solar deployment was incorporated into the electrical design to simplify future implementation. The electricity supply arrangements were formalised, as were the residential consumer tariffs and the scheme has begun generating the revenue which is now funding the infrastructure replacement project works over an agreed term.

The upgrade works were completed with EnergyTec project managing the infrastructure upgrade. Switchboards, Meters and communications systems were installed and the site is now operational as an AMR site.