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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
When Mike Casey bought his house near Cromwell, it came with gas bottles on the side of the home for water and an expensive diesel system for the underfloor heating. He replaced both of them with a Steibel Eltron system and it's been saving him money ever since. As technical manager Bhawesh Singh told him at the Electrify Queenstown conference, there has been a big influx in enquiries from homes looking to get off the molecules and onto electrons.
Read moreDownloadConfidence that cutting regulations to make solar power more accessible - won't jeopardise people's safety. A new Regulation Ministry reports laid out a potential blueprint to legalise plug-in solar and reduce the time and cost of panel installation. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey shares his thoughts with Andrew Dickens.
The burgeoning demand for solar was also a chance to address a mismatch between the numbers of training opportunities available and young people searching for work, Casey said. "The mums of New Zealand are telling me that there's not enough apprenticeships for their kids and the solar installers of New Zealand are telling me there's not enough trained people."
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