1050 days ago

Solar power is coming to Northland

Oliver Neighbourly Lead from One Tree Point

Lodestone Energy is planning to build five solar power farms, two of which will be located in Northland. Both Stuff and RNZ have published articles about this.
The first to go online will be in Kaitaia, with construction beginning later this year and completion in 2022, and provide 62GWh annually. Together with the upgraded and expanded geothermal generation at Ngawha, this will provide more energy than the Far North needs and hopefully bring power prices down in that region, which are among the highest in the country. Any excess energy generated will benefit the rest of Northland, and once another solar farm at Dargaville has been added by the end of 2023, much of Northland will be on 100% renewable and locally produced electricity.
Let's get ready for this and support this development with getting off fossil fuels and switching to electricity over the next two to three years. Need a small car that takes us to town and back, or to commute to work, or drive the kids around? Get a used electric vehicle. Still heating the home with wood fire like in the 1800s? Get a heat pump with its three times higher heating efficiency. Gas stove getting old and needing replacement? Switch to an induction cooktop. Want to become part of the renewable electricity grid? Pop rooftop solar on, and a storage battery in the garage or shed. There are so many ways to electrify and increase our energy efficiency, and Gen Less has all the resources we need to learn about it. Also, there's no need for knee-jerk action or panic - we can do all this when opportunities present themselves, like special offers, subsidies, rental and subscription programs with no capital required, or just a great bargain. This decade will bring a lot of progress and changes in the home energy space. Just let's be open-minded, keep our eyes and ears open, tell each other about it, and take action when we can.

More messages from your neighbours
9 hours ago

Whangarei Film Society - Screenings for Thursday April 4th

Geoff from Central Whangarei

Good People

On Thursday, the 4th April at 6pm WFS will be screening the wildly entertaining documentary about the history of LP album cover design, Squaring the Circle.

Our 8pm screening will be the Brazilian black comedy, Charcoal.

SQUARING THE CIRCLE
UK, 2023, Documentary, 101 mins
Cast: Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Peter Gabriel, Noel Gallagher and Glen Matlock.

This doco profiles the emergence of Hipgnosis, the designers behind some of the most iconic album covers in music history and interviews some of the artists they worked for.

Hipgnosis created the prism on Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, the all-star jailbreak on McCartney and Wings’ Band on the Run and the kids climbing a mystical stone landscape for Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy.

Each cover would earn Hipgnosis more fans and more superstar clients and for studio founders, Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson, each new cover they designed also needed to be a little weirder than the last…

For newcomers to the history of record album cover art, this film will come as a revelation. For old-timers, it will be a much loved trip down memory lane. - Rock and Roll Globe

View the trailer at: www.youtube.com...

Tickets: Door sales only. Price: $10 for WFS members, $15 for non members.

Cash only please - no Eftpos/credit card services available.

Visit whangareifilmsociety.org and sign up for our free weekly email for information on the rest of our films and screening dates for 2024.

1 day ago

Gardening help required in Ruakaka

Peter from Ruakaka

Hi someone to help us old pensioners with our small section gardens .Cheers Peter

20 hours ago

An update on repairing major slips in Northland

The Team from Whangarei District Council

Responding to flooding and severe weather has been expensive. Northland’s local road network has suffered approximately $89m worth of damage from at least 10 different significant weather events since July 2022.

We've worked with other Northland Councils to produce an interactive map showing repair of slips in our Region.

It shows that we have successfully restored the majority of roads in Whangārei District and are focusing on 28 remaining sites, with an estimated cost of around $10 million total. These repairs are expected to take 2 - 3 years to complete.

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