Millner leads way with `green' hall

Northern Territory News
Tuesday 3/2/2009 Page: 17

A Darwin school will this year undergo an energy revolution by making its own electricity and growing trees to help cool buildings. Millner Primary School already has what principal Terry Quong says is the first "low-energy enclosed hall in the Territory", and the coming solar panels to be placed on its roof are expected to help save the school a pretty penny in power bills. "We have applied for, and will construct, a 4.7kW solar energy system comprising 22 panels," Dr Quong said.

He said the school expected the panels to save about $1400 a year. Meanwhile, the upgrade of the school's old halI - which opened at the end of Term 4 last year-was designed so kids could keep cool without air conditioning. It has been built to a tropical design with loads of louvres and two 9m fans. Dr Quong said by going for a "green" hall, the school had saved an estimated $25,000 a year in air conditioning costs. He said the next stage of the project involved plugging the hall into a "low energy cooling system" - or in normal terms, a garden.

A "transpiration" garden of tiny plants is growing next to the hall, and eventually air ducts in the hall will suck in the cooled air from the trees and move it to the giant fans. They will then push the cooler air down into the hall. "We believe (the hall) will serve as a pilot of what is possible in the design of school halls," Dr Quong said.

Both the hall and the solar panels will also be used as subjects in students' studies. Year 2 students Kaelah White, 6, and Gabriel Wells-Kelly, 7, said the hall should be a good place to escape the heat. Gabriel said it was "exciting" to have the revamped hall without air conditioning. "Air conditioning wastes electricity," he said.

Dr Quong said the school had received $1 million as part of its 40th anniversary last year to refurbish the hall, and money for the solar panels came from a Federal Government grant.