An air-conditioning system that can reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in commercial and industrial buildings by up to 85 per cent has won the Australian Clean Technologies Ideas Competition.

SMAC Technologies was announced as the competition winner at an awards gala dinner in Sydney last night, attended by Australia’s leading innovators in the cleantech community.

Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr said that entries in the competition – an initiative of the Supplier Advocate Program and Clean Technology Focus for Supply Chains Program – demonstrated the commitment and ability of Australian businesses to embrace environmental sustainability.

“The SMAC technology has already been used in projects supported by the Gillard Government's Green Building Fund, helping reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings,” Senator Carr said.

"This type of technology not only builds strong new Australian-based manufacturing industries, but also helps existing industries to be more globally competitive and resilient to price rises.

“This air conditioning technology ticks all the boxes in helping tackle climate change and cutting our carbon footprint.”

The winning SMAC technology is equally suited to retrofitting as well as to new energy efficient buildings.

The award was announced by the CEO of Commercialisation Australia, Doron Ben-Meir. He said the air conditioning system not only cut energy usage, but cut costs too.

SMAC Technologies and other finalists were mentored by the Innovation Department and competition partners. This gave them the necessary business acumen to help take their ideas to the global market.

SMAC will represent Australia at the international Cleantech Open Global Ideas Competition in the United States. The company will compete against entrants from 90 countries for over $100,000 in services to help launch their idea. They will also have a week of mentoring, meetings with investors, business services and other entrepreneurs at the International Awards Gala in November 2011.

The competition is supported by Enterprise Connect, Commercialisation Australia, the CSIRO and Austrade. For more information and to view videos of the finalists, go to: www.cleantechopen.com.au

A printable version of the media release [PDF 56 KB] is available.