Lyndhurst students support South East Water sustainability project
Students at Lyndhurst Primary School are participating in an urban cooling research and development project led by South East Water.
The project involves using our OneBox®+ controller to manage and monitor sensors, irrigation and misting to cool the landscape, mitigating inner city warming, also known as the Urban Heat Island Effect. This research aims to test a hypothesis that water may be cheaper than electricity when cooling the environment we live in.
The project is a collaboration between South East Water, University of Melbourne and the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.
We’re using our Aquarevo House as the test site and Lyndhurst Primary School as a second, Control site to undertake the research.
We’ll be using commercially available climate stations and SEW developed low-cost prototype sensors to monitor ambient temperature, ambient light intensity, relative humidity, soil moisture and soil temperature. This data will be fed into the OneBox®+ controller and our central data system, so we can monitor the sensors, and control the irrigation system and misting remotely.
“We’re excited to share this project with Lyndhurst Primary School. Some of the students are, or may eventually be residents of the Aquarevo Estate – so it’s great that they’re learning with us and supporting our ongoing research to find integrated water management solutions that contribute to tackling challenges like climate change and water security.”
“If successful, this technology could potentially offer cheaper energy bills by using less air conditioning inside, and a smart irrigation system that only waters plants when they need it.”
- Acting General Manager Liveable Water Solutions Terry Dalgleish.
As part of the partnership with Lyndhurst Primary School, we’ve installed a climate station at the school and we’ll be sharing data from the climate station on humidity, ambient light intensity, soil temperature, soil moisture and ambient temperature so the school can use this information as part of their climate studies.
We also recently installed sustainable garden beds at the school for their bush tucker and kitchen gardens, providing the students with the opportunity to get hands-on experience growing veggies and learn more about Indigenous foods and culture, and the role of water in sustaining them.
This project is an extension of our Aquarevo development in Lyndhurst where 460 homes will be plumbed with three sources of water; drinking water, recycled water and rainwater. The water sources are integrated using innovative water technology, including a rain-to-hot water system and the OneBox®+ controller. By using recycled water for the washing machine, toilet and garden, and rainwater for showering, Aquarevo residents are able to reduce their water usage by up to 70 per cent.
The first Aquarevo residents moved into the development in May 2019, and there’s now around 150 occupied properties in the estate.
Pictured: Lyndhurst Primary School students planing new indigenous plants for their Bush Tucker garden
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