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Via TVNZ News,
And much more information is available on NCC's solar hot water heating webpage. Not only are they effectively giving their residents a long-term (10 years for a few $k) low interest loan, which interestingly is targeted to the property not the owner, but they've used their size to negotiate lower prices, are making sure people get their government subsidy and waiving the fee on the building consent.
It certainly puts Christchurch City Council's paltry $200 subsidy and token installation on a few of it's own 2650 housing units to shame.
For those in other cities, pointers to your local council's equivalent schemes welcome in the comments :)
~~~
While I'm on the subject, here's an update on my own solar hot water system. I've had the programmed nightly top-up turned off recently because even with the few hours of summer sun we've been having there's been plenty of hot water at the top of the tank. I flicked it back on Monday night for a boost and the resulting spike (just 3 hours) nearly doubled our power use for Tuesday.
Can I mention that I also love PowerShop's daily reporting, viewable down to day/night meter resolution :D More on that in a few days time.
Nelson, New Zealand's sunshine capital, is planning to turn its sunlight into power.
Neslon wants to become the country's first 'solar city' with a scheme to help 1,700 homes switch to solar powered water heating over the next four years.
...
So popular that the council's had to run a ballot to choose the first homes to capitalise on solar energy.
And much more information is available on NCC's solar hot water heating webpage. Not only are they effectively giving their residents a long-term (10 years for a few $k) low interest loan, which interestingly is targeted to the property not the owner, but they've used their size to negotiate lower prices, are making sure people get their government subsidy and waiving the fee on the building consent.
It certainly puts Christchurch City Council's paltry $200 subsidy and token installation on a few of it's own 2650 housing units to shame.
For those in other cities, pointers to your local council's equivalent schemes welcome in the comments :)
~~~
While I'm on the subject, here's an update on my own solar hot water system. I've had the programmed nightly top-up turned off recently because even with the few hours of summer sun we've been having there's been plenty of hot water at the top of the tank. I flicked it back on Monday night for a boost and the resulting spike (just 3 hours) nearly doubled our power use for Tuesday.
Can I mention that I also love PowerShop's daily reporting, viewable down to day/night meter resolution :D More on that in a few days time.
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Date: 2010-01-13 10:29 am (UTC)From:BTW we went with Powershop, though we don't have a smart meter. By far they have the best deal for power down here.