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Something electric is brewing in Auckland - and teacher Charlotte McKeon is leading the charge.
Last year, she led a cohort of One Tree Hill College students through a deep retrofit project of an old Kainga Ora home, with support from local businesses (product + material suppliers, tradies etc). They successfully completed the home, showed considerable cost savings in comparison to demolishing and building new, reached Homestar 7 standard, and sold the project at auction.
The project was a major success on many different levels, whether it was bringing the community together, giving students real world experience, or providing a great demonstration of what's possible to other colleges.
Charlotte is once again embarking on a retrofit journey this year with a new derelict home, a group of excited students, and a number of willing businesses supporting the scheme.
But this time she's looking to go one step further and deliver a 'zero bills' home complete with solar, batteries and all the latest electric tech.
Teachers are always heroes in our eyes. And tradies will be the heroes of our electrification push. This is a match made in heaven
A very cool 'floatovoltaics' project makes use of unproductive pond space and also helps those struggling with their energy bills; renewables push down the price of electricity to nothing (or less than nothing) in Scandinavia and South Australia and New Zealand has an opportunity to follow suit; France goes hard on electrification, while the UK builds better; Aussie truckies reckon electrification will take decades but much bigger electric machines are here now, including some from Volvo; hydrogen generators are an innovation we do not need; the Speight's brewery gets off the gas with a $7.2 million electric boiler; and a bit of 'solarcasm' demonstrates how going off-grid is now an option for some.
Read moreDownloadA big part of our New Zealand-made energy plan is helping gas users get off the pipes and onto the electrons. Now Business NZ has added its voice to the debate, suggesting that the $200 million set aside to help the oil and gas industry is instead used as loans to help businesses electrify. The rare call for support came after it released a report showing that the businesses reliant on gas were struggling with increasing prices and their closure would have a massive impact on jobs and the economy.
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