Rural town heading towards energy self-sufficiency

Imagine if New Zealand households took their energy supply needs into their own hands, building their own wind generation and selling electricity back to the national grid. The downstream effects would be enormous, at both ends of the equation. It’s early days yet, but that’s exactly what one small South Island town is looking at doing. You’re unlikely to have heard of it but Waitati can be found 20 kilometres north of Dunedin, on the fringes of Blueskin Bay. Despite a population of only 200 households, the town has a long history of environmental activism and sustainability initiatives that show no signs of abating – rather, the reverse. In 2006, the town was inundated – literally – when floods affected a good many houses and properties. It was a “marking moment” for the community, which turned a mini disaster into an opportunity to highlight potential climate change effects and ramp up its efforts to become self-sustainable. Transition towns Waitati is not alone in its endeavours. It is part of the national Transition Towns organisation (www.transitiontowns.org.nz), a collection of small communities all concerned about the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil. Each transition group networks with its local community on a coordinated range of projects “designed to transition from high energy to low energy lifestyles in a positive and creative manner”. However, Waitati seems particularly committed to the cause. Activity has intensified in the past year with workshops, forums and Energy Expos. Recently, it scored a major coup by persuading the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to undertake insulation retrofits on 170 ‘priority’ households in the area over the next few months. They will deliver considerable energy savings, particularly during Otago’s notoriously cold winters. The coordinator of the town’s energy initiatives – known as the Waitati Energy Project (WEP) – is Scott Willis, whose passion and enthusiasm is obvious to all. His unflagging efforts last year saw an increase in interest in power generation, plus a tighter focus on building energy literacy and awareness in the town. “Understanding the link between energy production and awareness of consumption is the way to make changes,” he believes. Attitude survey A survey of energy use by townspeople has also been undertaken by the University of Otago’s ‘Otago Energy Research Centre’, the results of which are currently being compiled and will be announced later this month. Willis says it will provide information for the Waitati Energy Project and the initiatives it undertakes. Not only did the survey canvas current energy sources and usage, it gave respondents an opportunity to comment on various aspects of potential future energy sources and what they might like to see made available. Willis co-ordinated 2008’s WEP Energy Expo which combined speakers on energy issues with local and commercial exhibitors of energy products and services. In terms of Renewable Generation, he is engaged in talks with the Dunedin City Council on the possibilities offered by micro-hydro generation, as well as liaising with Nicolas Cullen, a geography lecturer at the University of Otago. Dr Cullen’s students are setting up wind monitors at sites around Waitati and looking at the technical aspects of a community controlled distributed generation project, while Willis is ensuring a number of other relationships are being established to move the dream of an energy secure community towards reality. Naturally, little can be done without the assistance and consent of local residents, opposition from whom has seen sustainable energy efforts in other parts of the country falter or fall over. Otago University student Matthew Hoffman recently completed a dissertation for his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in which he canvassed attitudes towards community owned wind energy in Waitati. Residents supportive He says Waitati residents are generally supportive of wind energy, particularly at the local level. Community ownership of wind farms is seen by Waitati residents to be a potentially viable solution to the energy problems caused by power cuts and high prices. Community ownership of such a wind development is also seen to be a key way in which the impacts of any wind development occurring near Waitati could be mitigated, or at least made more acceptable to the wider community. “Waitati also holds an advantage that many Western European towns and villages have – there is a dedicated group of energy activists, the WEP, which can act as a forum for discussion, debate and information dissemination for the wider community. “However, there are still challenges for groups like the WEP in attempting to shift the community onto a soft energy path. Many respondents felt that issues with financing such a project, managing conflict within the community, and having the skill base necessary to ensure ongoing management of a wind energy project would be difficult to surmount.” He concluded that with enough community support and shrewd management of the challenges of such an energy path, Waitati could potentially become a microcosm of the wider nation’s quest for energy security, and an example for other settlements to follow.

Unique wind turbine  In its favour, Waitati is notoriously windy, making the surrounding hills the near-perfect location for wind turbines. This year a small innovative Dunedin company, Powerhouse Wind, is harnessing these strong winds to test a unique, single bladed wind turbine. The innovative design is the brainchild of two former Fisher & Paykel engineers, Bill Currie and Wayne O’Hara. What makes their design unique is its ability to adjust itself to protect against damage in strong winds, or the turbulence resulting from placement near houses. Many small windmills don’t cope well with high wind speeds. Should the variable wind speed turbine succeed, each unit would be able to power a single house, which uses around 21 kilowatt hours a day. When combined with an energy efficient lifestyle, it could even provide an electricity surplus which could then be fed back to the national grid. At the Waitati site, property owner Hagen Brueggerman has exactly this intention. While opposition to wind farms has been vehement in other parts of the country, Willis says local landowners have offered two places around Blueskin Bay where turbines could be erected. Wind power challenges Powering a small town purely from wind is not, however, without its challenges. For one, wind power is the least efficient of the currently available methods of producing electricity. For another, there might be issues around administering a community-owned energy cooperative. After all, says Willis, the bottom line is that it must benefit the community. Also, there could be challenges with physically distributing the power, and it would need to be made isolatable, so that in the event of an emergency it could be shut down. Plus, there might be social acceptance issues which according to Hoffman come in four forms: 1. A positive attitude towards wind power in general, but opposition to local projects (NIMBY or not in my back yard). 2. Opposition towards wind power in general, including opposition to local wind projects (not in any back yard, or ‘NIABY’). 3. Support for wind power which becomes negative as a result of being exposed to additional information about the proposed project. 4. Opposition created by flaws in wind farm design, rather than rejection of wind power in principle. Hoffman says that because the majority of people express support for wind energy, at least at the conceptual level, NIMBY and NIABY are unlikely, or infrequent, explanations for peoples’ opposition to wind farms. The final two forms of opposition are most likely to represent public resistance to wind farms. However, wind developers and planners continue to utilise the NIMBY explanation to explain the ‘social gap’ between public support for wind power in general, and resistance towards particular wind energy developments (Wolsink, 2007). Other initiatives While electricity generation is a key platform of the Waitati Energy Project, the WEP also alerts householders to other initiatives which could improve their energy consumption. One of these is Beacon Pathway, a research consortium which aims to improve New Zealand housing. As the number of existing homes in this country far outweighs the number of new builds, Beacon is identifying and testing the best ways to make a house perform well. The HomeSmart Renovations project provides advice to homeowners on how to bring homes to a HSS (High Standard of Sustainability™) – Beacon’s benchmark for an efficiently performing house – by improving energy and water efficiency, and ensuring a healthy indoor environment. Working together with community retrofit partner, EnergySmart, Beacon has been undertaking a pilot project of 750 HomeSmart Renovations around New Zealand.