New Zealand: Peria School’s New Solar Power System
June 24th, 2014Update: The Story Was Finally Broadcast on Television Show Seven Sharp
This finally aired on a show called Seven Sharp on 27 June 2014. Fast forward to about the 15 minute mark.
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Here’s a little slice of life from rural Northland New Zealand, for anyone who’s interested.
Yesterday, I went along to Peria School with my family and my neighbors for the activation of a brand new 10KW solar power system. I recently wrote about how the power companies treat us, and it’s nothing personal—they put it to that little rural school just as badly as the rest of us up here.
Concerned school staff and parents settled on Solar King to help the school build a solar system that will drastically cut their electricity bills, saving them thousands of dollars per year. With the savings, the school wants to create a music program and work out a way to heat the pool. Other projects will follow.
Becky and I are homeschoolers, but we have ties to Peria School. We go to Playcentre there and take our boys to swimming lessons at the school’s pool. The boys have friends from Playcentre who went on to go to the school. The principal, Jason Tane, is an absolutely great guy who would do anything for his students and school. I forgot to mention in my other post that one of the reasons we went with Solar King was that they would take NZ$500 off the cost of Peria School’s system for each system they built in the community. Becky and I were happy and proud that our deal with Solar King would help the school get their system going for less.
Now, this event yesterday was one of the most positive things I’ve ever seen up here. There had to be a hundred adults present, which might not sound like a lot, but for such a small and remote school, it was a very big turnout. Also, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman was there to flick the switch on the system, so-to-speak. I met him as he was checking out the inverters and Jon King from Solar King mentioned how much Becky and I are paying for electricity. (Jon installed the inverter at our house so he knew the story.) Mr. Norman was genuinely taken aback by the cost of electricity here.
Anyway, the reason I’m posting this is because I’m surprised (but not that surprised) by how little coverage this story got in the media. Peria School is the first school in Northland to go solar and the only coverage that I’ve been able to find is this little piece on Radio New Zealand:
A small primary school in the Far North school has become the first in the region to switch to solar power.
Peria School, a decile 2 primary with 31 pupils, officially launched its new solar power system on Monday with a community lunch and a ribbon-cutting by the Green Party co-leader Russell Norman.
Principal Jason Tane said the school had been [paying?] power bills of $800 a month to Contact Energy.
Mr Tane said the school was looking for a cheaper rate and a more environmentally-friendly power company but could not get a significantly better deal from any of Contact’s competitors.
After researching alternatives, and getting Ministry of Education approval, the school signed up with a company called Solar King, he said.
Here’s the audio.
* First school in the region to go solar
* After being absolutely screwed by the power companies
* Fights back and wins!
That’s big news, right? I think so.
There was a professional photographer present from one of the Fairfax owned local papers and a television crew, although I didn’t notice which channel.
What happened to this story? No TV or newspaper coverage, even after the reporters were there?
*sigh*
Principal Jason Tane talks about Peria School’s new solar power system
Every new solar power system needs a haka
Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman and students from Peria School cut the ribbon
Jon King from Solar King shows Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman Peria School’s new inverters
Where is your power sourced? My understanding was that the North Island was dependent on the South Island for power.
As a point of reference my effective post-tax price is 24c / kw in the South Canterbury region. I consider that to be expensive.
Also I had the power meters replaced the other day, and while the new ones were modern, they weren’t smart meters. The installer told me that Oracle manages the smart meters, at least for our region, and the usage information goes overseas to the USA. So even with no meter reader coming round any more once every three months, with the cost of the repeaters for the signal and the tax to Oracle.. I bet it won’t get any cheaper.
70% of what we use up here is generated from Ngawha (geothermal), near Kaikohe. Almost locally, in other words.
47.7 cents is just the unit rate we pay. The daily line charge (we’re on low user) is even more.
I have a bit of inside info about the actual cost of the power we’re getting. Let’s just say that if people eventually wind up in jail over this, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not holding my breath, though.
I’m surprised you didn’t have a word in Russell Norman’s ear, given that this is one of their campaign policies. If it is that dodgy, I’d hope he was a politician of sufficient calibre that he’d do something about it.