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Vessev has been turning heads with its beautiful electric hydrofoiling boats in New Zealand and it will soon be turning heads in Northern Ireland as it has just received its first international order for an 11-person VS-9 from an eco tourism resort.
As CEO Eric Laakmann says, boats are basically snow ploughs, so it is not just about adding more power or more batteries to get through the water; it's about making the boats more efficient and taking the hull out of the water. Reducing the surface area is the solution to that.
The increased efficiency of hydrofoiling means the cost to operate is 90% lower than diesel. And it's a lot more comfortable for the passengers as well. With over 30 million boats in the world, almost all of them running on fossil fuels, there should be many more orders where that came from.
The Ministry for Regulation is undertaking a review of the rules and processes around small and medium scale solar installations. That affects many farms and businesses as well as those who own their own homes or renters keen on “plug-in” or balcony solar. This review is likely the biggest opportunity in the coming decades to future-proof the processes and rules to ensure New Zealand is set up for a lot more - and much cheaper - distributed solar. So fill in the survey before June 1.
Read moreDownloadWhen you live in a 'pocket neighbourhood', it makes sense to run on the sun and embrace electric tech - and that's exactly what the Peterborough Housing Co-op in Christchurch has done. Jim Small, a trustee for the Ōtākaro Land Trust, says the co-op has been around since the early '80s and it's "designed with the community in mind". Think shared spaces, shared gardens, cars on the outside, shared utilities and shared energy.
Read moreDownloadContact's grid-scale battery at Glenbrook is switched on and the Prime Minister talks again about 'energy independence' at the opening; how steel mills and smelters here and overseas are embracing electrons; the electric wave is a massive job creation opportunity (while imported oil does bugger all on that front) and renewable projects are set to keep New South Wales out of recession; batteries have all but displaced gas for peaks in Queensland in just a couple of years, and solar and wind overtake gas for the first time globally; data shows sales of internal combustion cars peaked in 2017 but sales of EVs more than doubled between 2022 -2025; and anyone with a heat pump is making a killing.
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