Holiday makers relaxing at the Radisson Blu Resort on Denerau Island, Fiji, will now have all their energy needs catered for by a formidable 412kW solar photovoltaic (PV) array - the largest on a hotel in the Pacific.
Installed by solar company Sunergise, the system will produce an impressive 597MWh of renewable electricity annually, and help avoid the importation of 175,000 litres of diesel per year. It will displace over 417 tons of carbon dioxide - the equivalent of planting over 2000 trees.
Ever look at products and their packaging and think: there has to be a better way?
For the first time, George Elvin's Post-Petroleum Design brings together some of the best design work from the world's leading post-petroleum designers into a single resource.
Post-Petroleum Design introduces readers to the most current, state-of-the-art, plastic-and petroleum-free products and projects in industrial design, architecture, transportation, electronics, apparel and more. It explores the motivations for reduced-petroleum design as well as sharing extensive case studies, strategies and objectives of leading post-petroleum designers. This book is a significant contribution to sustainability and energy conservation literature.
Post-Petroleum Design gives design professionals the information they need to research, evaluate, and select materials, technologies and design strategies that meet the growing demand for post-petroleum products.
Variable winds-even in New Zealand's most blustery locations-make it difficult for windfarms to contribute more fully to the national grid, but new University of Otago research points the way to achieving a highly reliable supply of wind power.
A new study by the Department of Geography's Dr Nicolas Cullen and his former Master's student Peter Gibson indicates that interlinking windfarms across different regions of the country could boost generation reliability from New Zealand windfarms.
The pair made the discovery after carefully analysing New Zealand's wind circulation patterns alongside five years of synthesised wind speed data from 15 existing or proposed wind farm sites.
Dr Cullen says they calculated that even just a two-region network linking windfarms in far northern and southern regions of the country could substantially reduce zero-generation hours.
"We essentially found that if the weather is poor for generating power in the Far North, there is a good chance conditions will be favourable for generation in Otago and Southland, and vice versa," Dr Cullen says.
This phenomenon and similar, though less pronounced, variations between other regions mean that interconnecting wind farms through high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology would largely solve supply reliability issues, he says.
"Traditional methods for wind farm site selection do not take this into account, so our findings have implications for the future planning and site selection of windfarm projects in New Zealand," he says.
Dr Cullen says that interconnecting distant windfarms could help meet Government targets of moving from 73 percent of electricity generation from renewable sources to 90 percent by 2025.
"Our wind resources are some of the best in the world, but currently this renewable provides only 5 percent of New Zealand's total generation. There is a lot of scope to grow its contribution and greatly reduce, or ideally eliminate, generation from fossil fuels," he says.
Hallertau Brewery in Riverhead, Auckland, was the venue for the launch of the annual NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards, which take place in November this year. Entries are now invited - visit sustainable.org for more information.
Hallertau Brewery's husband and wife team, Stephen and Hayley Plowman, have been brewing delicately crafted beers for the last ten years.
Hallertau is currently in the process of putting 20kW of solar on the brewery's roof, which will provide around 25 per cent of the power usage, and is installing a beer garden, set to be finished by October, which will have 100 hop plants to create a fresh hop beer each year. A long concrete seat will warm the bottoms of patrons, with heat provided directly as a result of the brewing process.
The Hallertau menu focuses on locally-sourced, seasonal dishes.
Uniquely, Hallertau sells kegged wine, sourced from local wineries within 10 kilometres, and has focused on reducing packaging, offering refillable flagons since the brewery's inception.
The Auckland's Cancer Society's Domain Lodge is now being (partly) powered by the sun.
Switched on this month, the 127 panels atop the building should save the Cancer Society over $300,000 in electricity bills over the next 25 years.
The Lodge is used by some 80 staff, and has upwards of 1500 patients a year staying in its 52 rooms.
The $75,000 required for the instalment came from some early funding from the Auckland-based provider Solar King, with the rest being raised through the Society's 'Power Up' campaign, where donors had the opportunity to buy one - or more - solar panels.
Solar King has gone on to set up the Little Ray of Sunshine Foundation, dedicated to help fund community solar projects.
The world's first Cradle to Cradle (C2C)-certified battery storage system is available in New Zealand.
Aquion Energy is the manufacturer of the Hybrid Ion batteries which, in line with C2C certification, is infinitely recyclable, non-toxic and contains no rare metals.
Made of manganese oxide, cotton, carbon and salt water, the batteries were the creation of the formidable brain of Dr Jay Whitacre, an engineer on the Mars Rover project, and invested in by a suite of tech entrepreneurs including Bill Gates.
Also joining the race for home energy storage, this month Panasonic announced its lithium ion Home Storage Battery System and will be introducing a pilot programme with local retailers later this year.
Stewart Fowler, MD of Panasonic NZ commented, "While the number of homes with solar energy systems in New Zealand is small at approximately 0.2% of 1.67m homes, the number is expected to grow rapidly."
Fonterra already partners with Gull to produce pure ethanol from the byproducts of the dairy industry, and now the beer industry has followed suit, with the announcement this month from DB Breweries that they will produce 'brewtroleum', an ethanol derived from the left over yeast after the completion of the brewing process.
The beer company hopes to produce more than 30,000 litres of ethanol.
The Bioenergy Association last month signed a collaboration agreement with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to encourage New Zealand businesses to use more bioenergy.
Bioenergy is derived from forest harvest residues, wood processing waste, municipal organic waste and agricultural wastes. They are used to produce wood fuel and biogas for heat and transport biofuels.
The agreement will see a strategy developed to expand the bioenergy sector and promote the benefits of bioenergy to a wide range of Kiwi businesses, says Bioenergy Association executive officer Brian Cox.
"By working together we will be able to better identify and eliminate barriers for businesses to switch from coal to bioenergy and give them a high level of confidence in the bioenergy sector's ability to supply best practice products and services."
Mr Cox says bioenergy currently makes up just over 10 per cent of New Zealand's consumer energy and the Bioenergy Association has a vision of that increasing to 25 per cent by 2040.
"The economic consultancy BERL estimates bioenergy has the potential to add revenue of $6 billion a year to the New Zealand economy, so investing in bioenergy is an investment in New Zealand's future.
"We are very fortunate that New Zealand has large amounts of renewable natural resources that can be turned into bioenergy, creating economic growth, increased employment and a cleaner environment."
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The locations have been revealed.