Climate change
Community newsletter for Pukerua Bay
If you’re interested in what we’re doing in our little community, check out our two-monthly community newsletter (edited by my clever wife).
The latest issue of Kōrero (kōrero is Māori for news or talking) is online.
Here you can find information about the PKB Hub’s Pop-up Parlor, the Climate Action spring series, and a link to Maringikura Mary Campbell’s Facebook page with her artwork.
Also, lots of informative articles. We hope you enjoy it.
Open letter to the oil industry
Greenpeace has launched an open letter to the oil industry telling them they are not welcome in New Zealand. It’s pretty blunt and leaves them in no doubt that people will not make it easy for them to get what they and the government want.
You are not welcome here.
We pledge to do everything we can to resist the oil and gas industry if the New Zealand government overturns the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration.
You can sign it online here: Open letter to the oil industry
Solar update with operational system - day 1
Solar update with operational system.
Yesterday, we had clear, sunny skies with good solar production for a brief period. That is, until a hail storm arrived. But this screen grab shows what is possible.
At about 3:10pm yesterday, we were producing 3404W from the panels and using 236W for the house. That’s about 7% of our power going towards the house’s running. The rest was ‘wasted’ by going into the grid. Even though we aren’t being paid for it, it is power we don’t have to pay Contact Energy for. We’re obsessively watching the app and will have to learn to balance production under certain conditions and use appliances in the morning. We tend to put an electric heater on for an hour or so to warm the house if it’s been cold overnight. And we do laundry in the morning so we can line dry it. Fortunately, we don’t have to do laundry daily, so we have some flexibility.
Solar power update
Good news. The electrical inspector has just been around, tested the new solar system, turned it on and pronounced it safe to use. We are now running off the solar power produced on the roof panels on a bright sunny day.
We still don’t have the import/export meter installed so we don’t know how much power we are giving away, but we can wait for that, I reckon.
But it will be good to get the smartphone app to monitor the smart meter in the switchboard to get a clear idea of what we are producing and using.
Very exciting!