I’ve been investigating the potential impact of technological change on building and construction in New Zealand over the next 15 years. It’s made me think, in particular, about how technology in buildings can help us reach our lower carbon targets – just what my colleague Nick Collins was talking about in February’s blog.

Technology is at the forefront of improving building performance, particularly in leveraging the potential of increasingly ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ sensors, systems and analysis to provide data which can improve building operation.

This often refers to commercial buildings with building managers, but technology has the capacity to help us meet carbon reduction commitments through energy efficiency in our homes.

Smart meters, for example, help consumers to manage and adjust their energy/water usage at the house level and enable smart grid infrastructure at the city level. Smart meters generate usage data which can, with the appropriate security and privacy measures in place, interact with city-wide systems to manage demand, identify households in fuel poverty and interact with micro-generation of renewable energy.

In New Zealand the rollout of smart meters was left to the market, rather than regulated (compare this to the UK government which wants smart meters in all UK homes by 2020). According to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the meters rolled out are not particularly ‘smart’ – “They could have included a low cost component that would link the meter to a home area network – a network that connects the devices in the home that use electricity. This would have made it easy for householders to access real-time information on their electricity use using conveniently located displays, and enabled the introduction of smart appliances.”

Not only would smart meters benefit homeowners, they would enable smart grid implementation in New Zealand. Smart grids use modern digital communication technology to link with end user area networks (through really smart meters), establish better interconnection between distributed energy sources such as photovoltaic cells, and (ultimately) enable the integration of electric vehicles into the system. Distributed and autonomous power generation and usage is critical, with microgrids relying on typically renewable energy sources such as hydro, bio-mass, solar, wind, and geothermal.

Meanwhile, rapid developments in solar, storage, sensor and ‘smart’ technologies are allowing energy consumers to gain direct control over energy resources - self generation, self storage and self energy management. Solar PV panels have been improving exponentially - as solar capacity doubles, the cost of solar goes down by 22% every two years since 1970. Developments in energy storage and improvements in battery technology (for example, Tesla’s Powerwall) are fundamentally transforming the energy sector by integrating renewable energy into electricity grids and turning intermittent renewable power into a direct competitor to base-load power. Solar storage costs are going down at the rate of 16% pa. The spread of these technologies is being helped by innovative concept business models involving zero money down and third party finance (for example, SolarCity which treats its product as a service) and the growth of smart appliances that help consumers maximise energy efficiency.

How efficiently our homes operate needs to be recognised as a key element in lowering our carbon emissions. Technology can help us get there!

|  A BeaconPathway release  || March 13, 2017  ||

The government’s Resource Legislation Amendment Bill (RLA) threatens changes to environmental legislation. The manipulations by Nick Smith pave the way for destruction of New Zealand’s economic advantage and further loss of valuable habitat.

The RLA Bill’s aims are ambiguous but fundamentally change the ground rules to leave councils subject to Ministerial interference. The democratic process of consultation and civil society engagement will become vulnerable to the whim of the Minister. There was no cross party support for the Bill. Recently the Maori Party changed its position, but is now reconsidering it's backing.

The threat to New Zealand's environmental legislation is a two-pronged attack. The proposed National Environment Standards for Plantation Forestry (NES-PF) is in its final stages [4], if adopted will also remove the right of councils to apply land use precautions on GE trees. Environmental harm caused by release of Genetically Engineered Organisms and costs associated with economic loss will also be forced onto regions, despite the communities wanting to preserve GM-free production.

"New Zealand businesses that are successfully exporting to the world are at risk from powers that will allow the Minister of the day to remove precautions around GMOs," said Jon Carapiet, national spokesman for GE-Free NZ.

"Moves to override regional controls on GMOs in agricultural production would be tantamount to self-sabotage of the national brand and destroy any hope of reaching the government's stated economic goal of doubling exports."

The proposed RLA legislation, section 43A(3)(b), signals a power grab by the Minister as the government would not need to demonstrate that the permitted activity has a significant adverse effect on the environment, undermining the very purpose of the Resource Management Act as well as the Hazardous substances and New Organisms Act. The purpose and principles of the Acts, which require scientific research, community consultation, and a precautionary approach on land use activities, would be immediately nullified.

“It is absurd for central government to be absolving itself of its duty of care to demonstrate the safety of GMO’s, yet simultaneously forbidding regional government to apply policies and measures that protect communities and regional economic development for the long term," said Claire Bleakley, president of GE-Free NZ.

"Nick Smith is effectively setting up a system that will enable destruction of the environment and sabotage the interests of people and communities.”

|  A GE-Free NZ release  |  March 9, 2017  ||

Other countries that are not even “clean-green” have dealt with the tyre problem

 Governmental public hand-wringing over the rural mountains of old tyres must be tempered with the understanding that central and local government was quite literally upto its neck in creating the detritus, noted the nation’s foremost developer of tyre remediation machinery.

Ken Evans (pictured) of Tekam Closed Loop is responsible for the New Zealand’s first all-size tyre granulator which converts discarded tyres into a variety of paving products.

Neither central nor local government encouraged the use of these granulated paving products and in some cases even discriminated against their use.

Government in all its forms had long failed to understand that the allocation of national and district contracts also militated against the use of granulated composition in roading and also in amenities surfacing.

Tekam Closed Loop’s tyre granulator is dual function in that it granulates the tyres in toto complete with their radial steel bands, or extracts the bands prior to granulation.

One of the reasons that surplus New Zealand tyres were being shipped to China was that the Chinese routinely used granulated tyre paving as a standard roading application.

Rubber roads are now standard in China, Brazil, Spain and Germany. The technique has been found to cut traffic noise by about 25 per cent, he noted.

Other applications in these countries convert tyres into ground rubber or rubber shreds, used to create ground cover for playgrounds, backfill for civil engineering projects, garden mulch, erosion control barriers or drainage foundations around buildings.

Low shock industrial surfaces such as those required for stock handling was another such example.

In his experience, Mr Evans noted, district and regional councils simply talked about installing granulation systems.

Though stockpiling old tyres in land dumps was now banned in the EU simply because they are not bio degradable, the practice continued unabated in this country, and showed every signs of continuing to do so once the current round of crocodile tears had dried up.

The technology existed in converting old tyres into asphalt, yet it was ignored in favour of instead formulating directives and policies instead of dealing with a problem that countries which do not even market themselves as being clean-green had long eliminated.

Another problem in New Zealand he said was that district authorities tended to consult on the problem with their roading contractors who had a vested interest in ensuring the continuation of the status quo, and thus doing nothing about the tyre problem.

Tekam Closed Loop developed the granulation system in conjunction with Napier Engineering and Contracting.

| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk  |  Monday 6 March 2017  ||

Development of national regulations for the storage of end-of-life tyres, and the finding of alternative end uses, cannot come soon enough, says Waikato Regional Council.

The need for these initiatives is being highlighted by a large site near Otorohanga now not able to take any more used tyres, said investigation and incident response manager Patrick Lynch.

“Council monitoring of a large storage site near Otorohanga has recently determined that no more tyres can be placed there until the site can properly manage their environmental risks. The operator there has received a formal notice to that effect.”

Due to a lack of uses for large volumes of old tyres this facility has been put in a position of stockpiling, resulting in hundreds of thousands of tyres now being on the site, Mr Lynch said.

“Anyone wanting to store tyres in bulk needs to manage the risk they can pose to the environment generally and to manage the risk and consequence of fire.”

In recognition of the environmental risk that large tyre piles pose, the Ministry for the Environment has announced that they will be putting in place a national environmental standard later this year to manage the storage and stockpiling of end-of-life tyres. All tyre storage facilities will need to be compliant with this standard.

“We know that central Government is also working hard to develop solutions for how to cope with the four million end-of-life tyres that New Zealand produces annually. In the meantime, it is the responsibility of anyone holding large amounts of old tyres to ensure they are managed safely and disposed of through appropriate collection facilities or landfills,” said Mr Lynch.

“We also urge consumers to check with their tyre retailer as to where their used tyres are going. When the consumer is purchasing a new tyre for their car they are generally paying a levy to ensure that it is properly disposed of when it reaches the end of its life. By all means the consumer should feel free to ask the retailer where used tyres are going. ”

Meanwhile, the Waikato Mayoral Forum is supporting the efforts of the regional council and others to find solutions for dealing with end-of-life tyres at a national level.

Mr Lynch briefed the forum – which includes mayors and the regional council chair – at a meeting in Hamilton this week. It subsequently passed a motion of support for a New Zealand-wide approach.

“This is an important issue and it’s great to see the collaborative efforts going into addressing it,” said forum chairman Alan Livingston.

|  A Waikatoe Regional Council release  |  February 23, 2017  ||

A major new campaign to stop people littering aims to change behaviour and to educate people, Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith and Parliamentary Private Secretary Scott Simpson announced today at National’s Bluegreen Forum in Auckland.

“Litter is a risk to New Zealand’s clean green brand and the best solution is where everyone responsibly disposes of their waste. That is why the Government is investing $3 million in a behavioural change campaign, the development of education materials and a national litter survey to help ensure we keep New Zealand beautiful.”

“The environmental harm from litter is not just the aesthetics but the harm plastic, paper and cans can do our waterways, marine environment and to wildlife. There is also the risk to New Zealand’s clean green brand.”

The ‘Do the Right Thing’ initiative will be funded through a grant to Keep New Zealand Beautiful from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund. This is the most generous support the Government has ever given Keep New Zealand Beautiful. The criteria for the fund was changed in 2016 by the Government to included improved litter management. The education component will be run through the Enviroschools organisation and the information campaign aligned with the Packaging Forum.

“Keep New Zealand Beautiful is an iconic kiwi institution and it is fitting in its 50th year we back this trusted name and organisation with the job of getting Kiwis to ‘Do The Right Thing’,” Dr Smith says.

“This funding includes support for national litter survey data. This will enable areas to celebrate being New Zealand’s tidiest kiwis and for those being the worst to be shamed into lifting their game. This data will be used to recognise at the Green Ribbon Awards those groups and communities that best live up to the Keep New Zealand Beautiful ambition.”

For more information on the Waste Minimisation Fund visit http://www.mfe.govt.nz/more/funding/waste-minimisation-fund/about-waste-minimisation-fund

For more information about Keep New Zealand Beautiful visit http://www.knzb.org.nz/

|  A Beehive release  |  February 26, 2017  ||

Will alert environmentalists, Greens, to renewable value , emissions reduction, organics

Napier advanced agri process technology specialist TEKAM is bringing to New Zealand Peter Franke  a world leader in turning agricultural waste into electricity and in the process ridding farms of the effluent which increasingly threatens drinking water.

Mr Franke is the founder of Germany’s Bio Ost which is a leading developer of closed loop systems which collect effluent, notably the dairy version, and convert it into energy for refrigeration and other milking systems, and also for distribution into the national grid.

These closed loop effluent-to-power systems are commonplace in Germany where installers are offered generous subsidies to install them.

The other Baltic nation leading in closed loop effluent-to-power is Denmark.

The Danish government has set a short term target of up to 50% of livestock manure to be made into this green energy supply.

Power derived from biogas and fed into the national grid is exempt from taxation in Denmark.

Mr Franke will advise on the installation and commissioning of on-farm plants and will outline returns to users in terms of energy recovery and in obtaining fertiliser by-products.

He is expected also to talk to local government officials about the value of the plants in reducing runoff contamination threats and also how the plants reduce methane emissions.

Similarly he will outline the benefit in which weed seeds and pathogens are killed during the biomass digestion process, thus lessening the farm need for synthetic herbicides and pesticides.

Ken Evans of TEKAM said that in his New Zealand visit Mr Franke will focus exclusively on discussing the technology and the cost-benefits of the on-farm bio gas installations.

Mr Evans’ TEKAM organisation is working in conjunction with Napier Engineering & Contracting on introducing the effluent-to-energy technology to New Zealand.

He noted that he did not anticipate any discussion of introducing state incentives, subsidies for these plants such as exist in Europe.

Mr Franke instead he said would focus on the practical evidence of his company’s world wide effluent-to-energy installations.

The problem in New Zealand of effluent finding its way into ground water would though be a priority topic, he said.

According to Mr Evans, New Zealand had been an early developer of dairy waste into energy conversion systems. But these early plants along with their associated research and development had been abandoned when the millennialist energy crisis scare failed to materialise.

| From the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  |  Monday 27 February 2017  ||

New freshwater reforms will result in 56,000 km more fences protecting New Zealand waterways from stock – enough to go round the world one and a half times, says Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.

The new rules on stock exclusion are part of the Government’s plans announced today setting a target for 90% of rivers and lakes to be swimmable by 2040.

“Farmers have made huge progress in recent years to improve their environmental practices and this will be another important step forward. Dairy farmers have already voluntarily fenced off over 24,000km of waterways,” says Mr Guy.

“We know that stock standing in or regularly crossing waterways can do significant damage. While dairy farmers have voluntarily fenced off around 96% of their waterways, we want to extend this to other types of farms as well.

“The proposed national regulation would ensure that dairy cattle, beef cattle, pigs and deer are kept out of waterways.

“We need to ensure the changes are practical for farmers, so the exclusions would be implemented in a staged process starting this year through to 2030, depending on the stock type and land slope.

“There are long term benefits for the primary industries and wider economy from these reforms. Overseas markets and consumers increasingly demand a strong environmental performance over and above regulatory requirements. In this context, protecting New Zealand’s natural advantage has never been more important.

“No single organisation or group is solely responsible for improving our water quality. Meeting the target will take a collective effort, but the primary industries have a key contribution to make.

“In the meantime, the Ministry for Primary Industries continues to work with the primary sectors to invest in good ideas which promote environmental best practice. One example is the Farm Systems Change program, which identifies high preforming farms and uses farmers’ networks to spread their knowledge.

“Another is a major programme under the Primary Growth Partnership, called Transforming the Dairy Value Chain. Under this programme effluent management systems have been improved, and every region now has a riparian planting guideline developed in conjunction with regional councils.

“As a Government we are committed to growing the primary industries at the same time as improving water quality. Water storage schemes like Central Plains Water and the Waimea Community Dam help in this by taking pressure off groundwater sources and maintaining summer river flows, delivering both economic and environmental benefits.

“We also know that science will play a major role in improving our freshwater. The ‘Our Land and Water’ National Science Challenge is investing $96.9 million over 10 years into this, hosted by AgResearch and involving six other Crown research institutes.

To read the proposals, and find out how to have your say, visit www.mfe.govt.nz

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) today opened the latest funding round for Crown loans to support energy efficiency and renewable energy projects across public sector organisations

EECA Business General Manager Greg Visser said public sector organisations could access interest-free loans to invest in energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy technology.

“The opportunities are many and varied. A hospital may swap environmentally unfriendly boilers for heat pumps, a polytech might retrofit super-efficient LED lights, or a council might receive assistance to invest in electric vehicles,” Mr Visser said.

“Invariably, entities such as hospitals and universities have higher priorities than saving energy. But these targeted, interest-free loans mean funding is not diverted from core priorities. Indeed, ongoing energy savings allow more money to go into those priority needs.”

In a previous funding round, Southern District Health Board got funding to upgrade energy management systems at Southland Hospital using a combination of Crown loans and EECA funding. The project will create energy cost savings of $138,000 and carbon reductions of 1,350 tonnes a year.

“It is well known that many hospitals need to allocate almost all available funds to cliniThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.cal services. We know from previous funding rounds that many projects would never have got off the ground without Crown loans,” Mr Visser said.

EECA research shows that public sector organisations, just like any business, can save up to 20% of the energy they use through smarter energy use. That can have a big impact on energy bills. There are also other benefits such as improved patient comfort through better building lighting and heating and cooling.

EECA can also use its expertise in energy efficiency to help Crown entities develop an energy management plan across all its parts so there is a long-term focus on energy management and savings.

Mr Visser said the loans are a great chance for public sector organisations to be innovative and prioritise energy management. The latest round, totalling $2 million, closes on 31 March.

In the past five years, 38 public sector projects have received Crown loans, resulting in cumulative savings of $9 million and carbon reductions of over 5,000 tonnes each year.

|  An EECA release  |  February 24, 2017  ||

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Early adopters of new technology that cuts energy use or carbon emissions can get support for their innovative project in a new funding round announced by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) today.

EECA provides support towards the cost of energy saving or renewable energy technology that has yet to be widely adopted in New Zealand.

“We are looking to support technology that is innovative, under-utilised or has not been applied in the New Zealand environment,” said EECA Project Manager, Dinesh Chand.

“We are looking to support pioneering projects that can be replicated by other companies so that energy savings go beyond the innovator.”

“Replication potential of projects like this is important. The support is provided to help share the risk for the early adopter. There is a national advantage if energy-saving technology is successful and if others take it up.”

Funding for both capital and showcasing the technology can cover up to 40% of the project costs to a maximum of $100,000.

The Technology Demonstration Programme is part of EECA’s work with business to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy.

To qualify for funding, projects must reduce energy intensity or greenhouse gas emissions, be applicable to multiple businesses in a sector, and must be financially viable, with a reasonable payback period.

“Applicants must also commit to having their project independently monitored and to promoting the project and the outcomes from it,” Mr Chand said.

A standout project from the previous funding round was Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL), which received funding to install LED floodlighting, the first New Zealand port to do so.

While LED lighting has been around for some time, the lighting intensity and reliability suitable to the harsh port environment had not been up to the mark.

“We can’t wait to demonstrate the effectiveness of LED floodlighting at our port,” said Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson, who has set the goal of POAL becoming New Zealand’s most sustainable port.

“This is a very exciting project and it really is just the start of what we hope to achieve through new technology.”

Mr Chand hopes and expects other New Zealand ports will follow POAL’s lead.

Businesses or organisations wishing to apply for funding to develop a demonstration project can do so either through a technology supplier registered with EECA or by completing and returning the technology demonstration application form available on the EECA Business website at:  https://www.eecabusiness.govt.nz/funding-and-support/technology-demonstration-projects/

| An EECA release  |  February 24, 2017  ||

 product information:  For further information on the system shown in the image contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Emitters are now on their way to paying the full cost of their carbon emissions in New Zealand, says Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett.

“As part of our ongoing work programme to reduce domestic emissions we have started the three-year phase out of the one-for-two emissions trading scheme subsidy,” says Mrs Bennett.

“This subsidy allowed some businesses to pay one emissions unit for every two tonnes of pollution they emit. Last year the Government announced we are phasing the measure out over three years to give businesses time to plan and adjust.”

The initial 50 per cent unit cost increased to 67 per cent from 1 January, and will rise to 83 per cent from 1 January 2018. All sectors in the ETS will pay the full market price from 1 January 2019.

“It is vital for businesses that we have certainty in our long-term response to climate change. Following the second stage of the ETS review this year we will set a clear long-term direction on how the ETS will help meet our ambitious emissions reduction targets,” says Mrs Bennett.

“Meeting our Paris Agreement targets will require more than business as usual. Alongside the ETS review, we have established three expert groups to help get more trees into the ground, reduce agricultural emissions, and adapt to the environmental impact of climate change.

“We’re also investing $2 billion on public transport, setting targets to increase the number of electric vehicles year on year until 2021, investing $20 million a year in agricultural greenhouse gas research and providing $200 million for international climate-related support.”

Recommendations from the second stage of the ETS review are expected in mid-2017 when the review is scheduled to conclude.

|  A beehive release  |  February 14, 207  ||