Blog 45: Special Guests Tour
Building on a great visit back in May with the local Sustainable Building Group and Green Drinks back in May, we have just hosted an international group.
This time it was an Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) group of 30 South East Asian Government Officials, sponsored by the NZ Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Our visitors were from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia and East Timor, and are in New Zealand for english language immersion while studying renewable energy.
3 EIT team members, led by Pamela Minor, were supporting the group and kept everything running to plan. On arrival around mid-day in 3 mini-buses, there was a short induction briefing for the group before they came up onto the building site. The group then had their lunch with us on-site, followed by a talk and Q&A session, with Maraetotara turning on a really beautiful spring day for them :-)
The talk was about sustainable building practices; reducing embodied energy in the construction materials through local sourcing of renewable/natural materials and how a combination of strawbale walls and passive solar design drastically reduce on-going energy consumption when living in the house.
The Q&A with the group was great, with questions about construction methods, advantages and disadvantages, maintenance, solar transport, solar PV, fire, rodents, costs etc.. a very interactive group that we really enjoyed hosting.
From our place, a smaller group (one mini-bus) went on to tour a local mini-hydro scheme at Mokopeka, situated on a farm about 8km’s back down the Maraetotara valley towards town - and I was lucky to be able to join them for a really fascinating tour. Big thanks to Ray Taylor for helping us connect with Pete Judd who arranged the tour with the property owner and Pamela from EIT and then guided the group through at short notice.
The Mokopeka hydro-electric power station was built by John Chambers on his farm in Maraetotara Valley in 1892. In addition to being a farmer he was an inventor and hobby engineer, he studied electricity by correspondence from the USA (no mean feat in the 1800’s) before ordering his power station equipment from London.
The original and still working dam/weir
The original powerhouse, still in use to create power for winter heating of the farm house
The canal and dam were built by hand. In 1892 a 14HP generator (sourced from Saint Pancras Rail Station in London - made in 1882and still functional today) lit the farm and powered a workshop. John Chambers wound his own electrical elements, used for heating his house and for an electric stove that he built himself and the chambers house was lit by electricity and had water supplied by a pump also located in the power house.
A short walk through the farm into the hydro scheme
The original generator still working (now used as a motor) built in 1882
By 1912 he had enlarged the plant with a new turbine and generator unit to produce 17 kilowatts at a standard 110 volts to supply his farm and a neighbouring farm, with the old generator retired to drive the water pump.
Pete giving a great talk and demonstration
Lots of photo’s…
Today this power plant is still working as ‘probably the oldest operational station in the world’ (IPENZ plaque).
The main switchboard, best viewed from a distance
Pamela and the group a respectful distance from the generator as it starts up