.................................................................................................................3
Solar Tour Day..........................................................................................................................................3
Solar Houses Required .............................................................................................................................3
Totara Valley Community Research Objectives..................................................................................4
Totara Valley Community Data Examples ..........................................................................................5
Totara Valley Community Firm Renewable Power Capacity ............................................................7
Wind Energy Resources in the Totara Valley.......................................................................................10
Windflow Technology.............................................................................................................................11
2003 ANZSES Conference......................................................................................................................11
2003 SEF Conference..............................................................................................................................11
Membership Survey................................................................................................................................11
ReNew Magazine.....................................................................................................................................11

Number 68 May 2003 2
Neil Cherry

Neil Cherry (1946 2003)

Renowned Christchurch environmental scientist
Dr. Neil Cherry, has lost his battle with crippling
motor neurone disease. The 56-year-old died at his
home on Saturday the 24
th
May.

Neil Cherry was an Associate Professor in
Environmental Health at Lincoln University and
had a wide-range of interests in environmental
issues. He was elected to the Canterbury Regional
Council in 1992. During the late 1990s Neil was
also the chairman of Solar Action.

A particular interest of Neils was wind energy and
he was responsible for a number of wind energy
resource assessment projects.

Neil played a pivotal role in the establishment of
Windflow Technology taking on the role as
Chairman of Directors for the wind turbine
manufacturer. Just one week before his death Neil
was present to see the completion of the prototype
Windflow turbine at Gebbies Pass, near
Christchurch.

In the Queen's 2002 New Year's Honours List,
Neil Cherry became an Officer of The New Zealand
Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to science,
education and the community.

A web biography of Neil Cherry can be found at the
following link:
http://www.nzine.co.nz/neilcherry_life_story.html

Neil is survived by his wife, Gae, and daughters Jo
and Carla.


Windflows Geoff Henderson, revealing the panel of
the Windflow turbine inscribed Neil.
Solar Action Bulletin
ISSN: 1171-8218
Solar Action Bulletin is the publication of Solar Action / The New Zealand branch of the Australian and
New Zealand Solar Energy Society (ANZSES)
Contributions are invited from members and non-members. Articles, letters and relevant photographs relating
to sustainable energy developments are welcome. Please address correspondence to
The Editor
Solar Action Bulletin
PO Box 54 223
Mana, Porirua.
Or email to solaraction@paradise.net.nz Number 68 May 2003 3
Editors Note
Andrew Pollard

I get the impression that the general public is
getting tired of energy savings campaigns, but
unless the issues are dealt with, energy problems
are not going to go away.
I was careful to say energy problems rather than
energy supply problems because the efficient use of
energy is as important as how much renewable and
non-renewable sourced energy can be supplied.
The solution also needs to be sustainable we have
no right to pass on to future generations the legacy
of our lazy, inefficient and non-renewable energy
practices.
The recent announcements of new (or expansions
of existing) windfarms are encouraging and go
some way towards providing a sustainable energy
future however more needs to be done.
Lets look at New Zealands residential hot water as
this service consumes a substantial amount of
New Zealands energy.
If you were to go into any house today chances are
that the hot water system is old and inefficient.
Substantial improvements can be made to the
energy use of a household by such things as
ensuring that the showers are fitted with low-flow
showerheads and that the hot water cylinder has a
good level of insulation.
It is welcomed that the recent revision of the energy
efficiency clause (H1) in the building code now
includes a requirement that hot water cylinders in
new houses incorporate a good level of insulation
(A grade).
But there are still plenty of opportunities to reduce
fossil fuel energy use further with the use of solar
water heating. Unfortunately there is no strong
government support for solar water heating at the
moment with the only offering being a $200,000
Solar Hot Water Grants scheme that will see the
installation of 400 solar water heaters next year.
I am glad to see that organisations such as the
Consumers Institute suggesting that every new
house should include a solar hot water heater.
http://www.consumer.org.nz/internallink.asp?topic
=Power crisis|Our opinion on the crisis

Lets hope that a sustainable energy future is
emerging.

Solar Tour Day
A number of sites showing off renewable energy
were open across Australia and New Zealand on
27
th
April as part of the inaugural ANZSES Solar
Tour Day.
The New Zealand component of Solar Tour Day
featured a visit to the Totara Valley and the Tararua
Windfarm.
Totara Valley, located near Woodville at the other
end of the Manawatu Gorge from Palmerston
North, is the site where IRL and Massey University
are involved in a research and demonstration
project examining the application of distributed
energy in a rural setting. Phil Murray, a researcher
from Massey University who has spent extensive
time collecting and analysing data from Totara
Valley, showed the tour group one of the
measurement sites and talked about the distributed
generation options for the community. A number of
articles on the Totara Valley Community are
featured in this Solar Action Bulletin.
Continuing the tour was a visit to TrustPowers
Tararua Windfarm where we were fortunate to have
Ian Shearer to tell us about the existing 48 turbine,
32 MW windfarm. TrustPower has recently
announced that this field is to be expanded with an
additional 55 Vestas turbines bringing the total
capacity of the farm up to 68 MW.
Permanent websites for both Solar Tour Day
(
www.solartourday.com
) and Solar House Day
(
www.solarhouseday.com
) have been established
and feature highlights from the previous events as
well as details of the up-coming events.
Solar Houses Required
The next major New Zealand/Australia wide event
will be the 2003 Solar House Day to be held on
Sunday the 14
th
September. Currently we are
looking for houses to include on this date so if you
have a house you are interesting in featuring, please
contact Andrew Pollard (
AndrewPollard@branz.co.nz
).
The Wright house featured in last years Solar
House Day has subsequently received a high profile
in the media appearing in the October/November
issue of EnergyWise News and in an April
screening of TV1s Home Front programme.
The August issue of Solar Action Bulletin will
include further details about Solar House Day 2003.

Front page: (top left) Phil Murray describes the data collected from one of the Totara Valley metering points
(bottom right) Some of the 48 turbines at the Tararua Windfarm. Number 68 May 2003 4
Totara Valley Community Rural Distributed Energy Project:
Research Objectives
Nihal Jayamaha
Massey University


The Totara Valley community, situated near
Kumeroa, Woodville, could be regarded as a typical
New Zealand sheep and beef farming rural
community. This community has volunteered to
become a research and demonstration site on
distributed energy resources for both, Massey
University and Industrial Research Limited (IRL).
Research Objectives
IRLs research at the Totara Valley community is
focused on assessing the integration of various
distributed energy resources (both renewable and
other) with a conventional electricity supply (which
may be a grid supply, a diesel genset or similar).
Data from the Totara Valley community will allow
IRL to validate the output of its Integrated
Distributed Energy Systems (IDES) tools which
look to optimise the technology combinations of
distributed energy resources to match local supply
and demand.

Massey Universitys work is focused on combining
renewable energy resource modeling with hybrid
system performance to develop predictive tools
based on socio-economic and environmental
parameters.

Both Massey and IRL aim to cover the following
broad study areas:
To identify new future business opportunities
for asset management companies and
electricity lines businesses with a view to
service rural communities while maintaining
reasonable line tariffs.
To demonstrate practical application of
distributed energy resources in a rural setting
utilising new technology (including
New Zealand developed prototypes) coupled
with locally available renewable energy
resources.
To develop an actual community level
distributed generation system while
establishing a viable commu