Collingwood Retrofitting by Electrification

Collingwood is a dense, heritage-rich inner-Melbourne neighbourhood where more than 80% of residential buildings are low-rise Victorian dwellings, most still relying on ageing ducted gas systems for space heating, hot water, and cooking. This proposal sets out to improve the life cycle energy performance of Collingwood's residential building stock and reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions across 50 years.

The core question driving this work is: what retrofitting strategy can meaningfully decarbonise an existing heritage precinct without requiring major structural intervention, and how much improvement can realistically be achieved under current and near-future energy system conditions?

The proposal evaluates three scenarios to quantify life cycle impact of each on delivered energy, primary energy demand, and GHG emissions across all residential archetypes in the study area.

• S1: Gas baseline

• S2: Full electrification

• S3: Electrification with rooftop solar PV