Living Laboratories – Green Proving Grounds
These proposed Living Laboratories will be spaces where owners, suppliers, users and researchers can collaborate, create and reflect on alternative solutions for affordable heating and cooling. The Living Laboratories will also act as a ‘Green Proving Ground’, where suppliers can validate the performance and applicability of their technologies.
The creation of data and user stories will help accelerate the adoption of emerging products and services, in a similar manner to the US Green Proving Ground initiative.
Examples of what can be achieved in the aged care sector can be seen here.
Click here for further information on Living Labs.
Current Living Laboratory projects
Healthcare Living Laboratories
- LLHC1: Sector-wide engagement and impact
- LLHC2: Warrigal Aged Care establishment and operation
- LLHC3: Fernhill Residential Aged Care
- LLHC4: Queensland Children’s Hospital
- LLHC5: Net-zero energy and resilient hospitals – Considerations of future climate, pandemics and demand management
Education (Schools) Living Laboratories
i-Hub Living Laboratories – Healthcare sector: Outcomes and next steps
In June 2022, Dr Wendy Miller (QUT) hosted the final i-Hub Living Laboratories healthcare sector seminar. The presentation covered the purpose of the activities, a summary of the 3+ years of work, and discussion on the renewable energy roadmap and future directions.
The presentation notes are available to download here.
i-Hub Summit III – webinar series
The i-Hub hosted the third edition of the i-Hub Summit in June 2021. The Living Laboratories webinar was held on Thursday, June 17, and is available to watch here.
i-Hub Summit II – webinar series
The Innovation Hub for Affordable Heating and Cooling (i-Hub) hosted its second Digital Summit during November and December in 2020, and the third session was held on Wednesday, December 2.
The i-Hub Living Laboratories are now operational for the retirement living, healthcare, and education sectors. In this webinar, learn about how industry and service providers can take up this unique opportunity to evaluate their technologies or services in a real world scenario while still having an independent and thorough evaluation. The webinar is available to watch here.
i-Hub Summit I – webinar series
The Innovation Hub for Affordable Heating and Cooling hosted its Digital Summit during June and July in 2020. The final session was held on Wednesday, July 8, and discussed the Living Laboratories initiative with Georgios Kokogiannakis, Sherif Zedan, Aaron Liu, and Clayton McDowell. The webinar is available to watch here.
Digital twin and optimisation
On May 7, 2021, CEO and co-founder of Exergenics, Iain Stewart, Affil.AIRAH, presented on the “Digital twin and optimisation” – the Living Lab at the Queensland Children’s Hospital. This project has the potential for reducing 350 tCO2e per year, the equivalent of removing 75 combustion engine cars from the road. You can watch the presentation below and download the slides here.
The COVID lockdown’s impact on energy usage in the aged care sector
In this presentation, Dr Aaron Liu discusses aged care energy security and the impact of COVID lockdowns.
Dr Liu is a QUT research fellow and project manager for the i-Hub Living Lab at Queensland Children’s Hospital. He is a registered professional engineer and has a PhD in energy investment planning and energy management.
Living Lab Test Facilities in Queensland
Dr Wendy Miller from QUT presented a seminar on Friday, May 1, 2020, about the US Green Proving Ground program that uses federal government buildings as living labs. The presentation notes are available to download here.