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BESS helpdesk closure - Dec 24 - Jan 5 inclusive
All
6 months, 4 weeks ago

The BESS Helpdesk will be closed from Monday 23 December (5PM AEDT), reopening on Monday 6 January 2025 (9AM AEDT).

BESS remains available to create, edit or view projects with Tool Notes to assist you.

We wish everyone in the BESS user community all the very best for the holiday season, and we look forward to working with you again in 2025.

BESS-3 and BESS-4 calculation engines have retired
BESS-3 and BESS-4
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Since 13 October, the BESS-3 and BESS-4 engines are no longer be supported.

BESS-3 and BESS-4 projects have not been deleted. These are still be able to be opened and viewed as read-only projects. Edits to BESS-3 and BESS-4 projects require the project to be upgraded to the latest version of BESS. 

The BESS-3 engine has been in use since June 2016, and was superseded by BESS-4 in August 2019.

The BESS-4 engine was superseded by BESS-5 in May 2020.

The current versions of the BESS engine are BESS-8 (BESS Classic) and BESS-9 (beta Release 2).

BESS-3 and BESS-4 calculation engines are retiring
All
9 months, 2 weeks ago
As of 13 October, the BESS-3 and BESS-4 engines will no longer be supported.
 
BESS-3 and BESS-4 projects will not be deleted. These will still be able to be opened and viewed as read-only projects. After 13 October, edits to BESS-3 and BESS-4 projects will require the project to be upgraded to the latest version of BESS. 
 
The BESS-3 engine has been in use since June 2016, and was superseded by BESS-4 in August 2019.

The BESS-4 engine was superseded by BESS-5 in May 2020.
 
The current versions of the BESS engine are BESS-8 (BESS Classic) and BESS-9 (beta Release 2).
We've made some fixes to the BESS Engine
All
1 year, 9 months ago
Recent fixes
  1. A bug affecting projects with gas heating to dwellings that were created or modified since July 2023 created calculation errors for the gas consumption and related greenhouse emissions. A small percentage of projects were affected. A fix has been implemented.

  2. A bug affecting some projects caused the average NatHERS rating to be incorrectly calculated 0.1 stars lower due to floating point math that software coding languages use. A small number of projects were affected. A fix has been implemented.
For these fixes in BESS, affected draft projects are updated at the time that energy recalculations are completed.

Information contained in published BESS revisions (pdf reports) including scores, remain unchanged. These reports represent a snapshot of a project in time and are an important record for planning submissions. Projects should always be published before submitting to council. 

If you require a revised BESS pdf report (for example to reflect an increase in score), you will need to republish your project. 

If you need to amend and republish your BESS assessment (for example as part of an RFI or permit condition), and are having trouble meeting the minimum BESS requirements, you should contact the relevant council.  

If you have any questions relating to recent fixes, please contact us on support@bess.net.au  
BESS helpdesk closure - Dec 23 - Jan 8 inclusive
All
2 years, 6 months ago

The BESS Helpdesk will be closed from Thursday 22 December (5PM AEDT), reopening on Monday 9 January 2023 (9AM AEDT).

The BESS website remains available to create, edit or view projects with Tool Notes to assist you.

We wish everyone in the BESS user community all the very best for the holiday season, and we look forward to working with you again in 2023.

BESS user survey open until end of November
All
2 years, 7 months ago

While you are always welcome to give us feedback at any time, we'd love it if you could take 5-10 mins to complete our annual user survey. 

Your feedback helps us understand your experience of using BESS, and plan ongoing software development work to make the tool as user friendly as possible. 

BESS User Survey - Oct / Nov 2022 (surveymonkey.com)

 

BESS 1.7.1 (BESS-7) is coming this weekend
All
2 years, 8 months ago

BESS will be unavailable for a short time on Saturday 12 November from 3pm to 7pm while we bring you version 1.7.1 (BESS-7).

BESS-7 is coming mid November
All
2 years, 8 months ago
These changes will go live mid November 2022. New tool notes and tool tips will also be available at this time. 

These changes apply to all new projects created in the BESS-7 engine, as well as existing that are upgraded to BESS-7. Projects created in earlier BESS versions can continue to be edited in those versions until an engine is retired. The oldest BESS engine currently in use is BESS-3. 

New - Credit for all electric developments
A credit has been introduced in the Energy category for development that is all-electric. This credit recognises the role of electrification in the transition to a zero carbon economy. This is a project wide credit - the entire development must be all electric for this credit to be claimed. More information is available in the BESS Tool Notes. 

Change - Innovation category scoring 
The Innovation category continues to contribute 9% toward the overall BESS score, however is only available once a project has achieved 50% in the other categories. This change has been made to improve consistency across councils while continuing to encourage and reward development that goes beyond the 50% target BESS score. 

Expanded - Heat pump hot water selections
The ‘Type of Hot Water System’ list has been expanded to include four heat pump options of varying efficiency, recognising that hot water heat pumps do not perform equally. As heat pumps do not currently carry energy labels, efficiencies have been derived from data from the Clean Energy Regulator on the number of small-scale technology certificates (STCs) available. More information is available in the BESS tool tips and tool notes. 

Credit change - IEQ4.1 (Air Quality Non-Residential) - ability to answer by building class
Previously this question was project wide, which meant that all non-residential building classes needed to meet the criteria in order to answer ‘Yes’ to each question. The change means that one building class (e.g. offices) could meet this credit where another building class in the development does not. 
We've made some fixes to the BESS Engine
All
2 years, 8 months ago
Recent fixes
  1. A bug affecting projects with reticulated third pipe connections that were created by copying other projects. A very small number of projects were affected. A fix has been implemented. 

  2. Projects where rainwater tanks had been entered and then deleted were incorrectly displaying rainwater results. The results for potable water use reduction were correct, but the visuals were confusing. A fix has been implemented. 

  3. A timing bug was introduced when we upgraded one of our supporting technologies. This meant that some data wasn't saved to the database correctly, affecting calculation results and in some cases also scoring. This bug affected around 10% of projects that were edited between April and August 2022. For 80% of these projects, the fix has improved the project score (usually by 1%). It primarily affected credits Energy 3.4 (Clothes Drying) and Water 1.1 (Potable Water Use).  A fix has now been implemented. 
When fixes are made to BESS, only new projects and any affected draft projects are updated. For draft projects, you will be alerted to an update when you open the project. 

Information contained in published BESS revisions (pdf reports) including scores, remain unchanged. These reports represent a snapshot of a project in time and are an important record for planning submissions. Projects should always be published before submitting to council. 

If you require a revised BESS pdf report (for example to reflect an increase in score), you will need to republish your project. 

If you need to amend and republish your BESS assessment (for example as part of an RFI or permit condition), and are having trouble meeting the minimum BESS requirements, you should contact the relevant council.  

If you have any questions relating to recent fixes, please contact us on support@bess.net.au  
BESS Scheduled Maintenance - Sunday 4th September
All
2 years, 10 months ago

BESS is undergoing scheduled maintenance Sunday 4th September, 5pm-6pm and will be unavailable for use for some or all of this period.

Update to BESS helpdesk
All
2 years, 10 months ago

We are migrating to a new helpdesk tool called freshdesk. We expect this will be seamless - please continue to use the form on the Contact page or email us at support@bess.net.au for any enquiries. 

Emails to support@bess.zendesk.com will no longer be monitored. 

Fresh new look for BESS Training coming soon
All
3 years ago

We're excited to annouce a fresh look for BESS Online Training. It's expanded and improved, with 3 new and refreshed packages available.

For the first time, BESS Fundamentals, as a free module is coming next week. Other packages to follow soon.

More details are on the BESS Training page.

BESS Scheduled Maintenance - Sunday 10th April
All
3 years, 3 months ago

BESS is undergoing scheduled maintenance Sunday 10th April, 12pm-3pm and will be unavailable for use for some or all of this period.

BESS Scheduled Maintenance - Sunday 10th April
All
3 years, 3 months ago

BESS is undergoing scheduled maintenance Sunday 10th April, 8am-12pm and will be unavailable for use for some or all of this period.

Tool note and credit wording updates
BESS6
3 years, 4 months ago

A recent update to BESS on the 7th of February resulted in a regression of some content on the website. New IEQ credits in Tool Notes were missing and the wording of some credits had regressed. This content has since been restored.

BESS helpdesk closure - Dec 23 - Jan 4 inclusive
All
3 years, 6 months ago

BESS support will be temporarily unavailable during the end of year holiday period. We'll be closed from 23 December 2020 and back for any queries on 4 January 2021.

BESS support will at reduced capacity from 4 January 2021 to 17 January. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

The BESS website will still be available for Planning permit assessments, to create or view projects with Tool notes and FAQ pages to assist you. However the contact form will be closed from 24 December to 4 January.

BESS Report Update
All
3 years, 8 months ago

The BESS Report format has had minor fixes applied to sort an issue where the Non-Potable Water connections for Residential dwellings was not being displayed in the final report.

A minor rendering issue that occured in some reports was also fixed.

New search fields
All
3 years, 9 months ago

Did you know? You can now search projects by Site Type, Council and BESS Engine 

2021 BESS User Survey
All
3 years, 12 months ago

We'd love your feedback. Our 2021 BESS user survey is open now until the end of July. Take the survey.