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“As long as you’re reducing your reliance on fossil fuels, there’s very little room for regret.” That’s a statement we can get behind and it’s something Rhys Boswell, the operations manager at Christchurch Airport, is continuing to push for.
It might seem strange to be celebrating an airport given the aviation sector is still so reliant on fossil fuels, but the Rewiring philosophy is to electrify what you can and make the right decision when the time comes. There are not many, if any, electric equivalents available when it comes to planes, but there's plenty more that can be done in other areas.
One of the airport's biggest initiatives is the Kōwhai Park solar farm, which is located beside the airport. With around 300,000 panels, Boswell says it will be the biggest in the country and could power 30-40,000 homes. This is just phase one and it has the ability to replicate that two or three times over.
The solar farm will be providing power to the grid (and also helping to irrigate the Canterbury Plains in summer when solar production is high) but it will also provide a chunk of that generation to the airport. Part of the rationale for the deal was that it helped the airport avoid a significant cost that would have been required for an upgrade as it reached the limits of its connection.
While Gary Freedman's Electric Air plane, the Pipistrel Alpha Electro, can often be spotted at the airport, Air New Zealand is currently trialling an electric plane and the innovation continues in this space. Boswell thinks the next generation of domestic turboprop planes will be battery and sustainable aviation fuel hybrids.
There are now a number of electric ground support vehicles at the airport, from tugs to the country’s first electric fire engine. And it also has a number of electric fleet vehicles and chargers.
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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