Powering the Future

At 10:20AM on Tuesday 7th April James Beer’s Project, Te Mana O te Ra, kicked into action.
Te Mana O te Ra, is the project name given to the power project that James Beer of Aroa, has installed.
Beer says Te Mana O Te Ra, is a pilot project setup to track the generating capacity of 12 x 40 watt solar panels grid tied to the electricity grid, and feeding in during the day and taking back during the night. This vital information will be collected by the AEC-Alternative Energy Committee and used in their strategic planning.
In the first 5 minutes of generation even with normal power consumption in the Beer’s household, with several appliances in use and a medium sized fridge freezer on, the meter was running backwards.
When asked the cost of installation? James Beer replied, ‘this being a project where all products were sourced from retail stores in NZ, the panels were bought at retail and the grid tied inverter was purchased at retail’ total purchase of 12 panels and the inverter was $7000.00 with freight $300.00 installation costs was $190.00 without labour ‘ total cost was just under $7500.00.
James Beer says, ‘ I will be tracking on a daily basis what the outputs are and because the inverter is quite intelligent it will give me readings that I will display on a roadside black board for people interested in how much energy is being produced. My log will take into consideration what type of day it is, whether it’s overcast or sunny. The average sunshine hours for Rarotonga is 9, there is about 12 hours of sunlight hours, but 9 of those hours is actual energy producing time. This should give many households plenty of time to produce, especially if there is no household consumption during peak producing hours when people are either working or at school.
‘How much will this cost if the AEC-Alternative Energy Committee are able to make national purchases or direct factory bulk purchases the answer is that it will be a whole lot less’.
There are savings if we buy direct ,AND more savings if we buy direct and in bulk’.

Herald Issue 455 15 April
- Powering the Future
- Fiji clamp down a worry for government
- Aitutaki Community Pays Tribute to Retiring Leaders!
- Cook’s to Lose Diverse Personality to United Nations!