KEY POINTS:
Electricity bills in a $400 million Auckland residential development could be cut by more than half in a project aimed at slashing home power costs.
A developer has joined state-owned energy company Meridian to build environmentally friendly houses at Orewa. Projections are that residents who shift into the planned houses will get annual power savings above 60 per cent.
Patrick Fontein, founder of developer Kensington Properties and chairman of the Green Building Council, is developing a group of energy-efficient houses at Orewa as part of a larger 500-house project.
Some houses planned in his Kensington Park on the corner of Puriri Ave and Centreway Rd have been used in a pilot study on how to save electricity, with Meridian Energy advising on power efficiencies.
Fontein said houses which would usually cost $2000 a year to run should cost only $800, according to the projections. "I couldn't believe it because I thought there might be savings of about 30 per cent."
The 60 per cent saving projections were made by Meridian, which had worked on the project for a year, he said.
Floor slabs which the houses stand on will be wrapped to insulate them against heat gains and losses. The houses will be oriented on their sites for maximum energy efficiency and have water-heating solar panels installed on each roof. Low-energy heat pumps will be installed for maximum heating and energy savings. Windows will be double-glazed to minimise heat transfer.
"Not all the houses we're developing are eco-friendly because it's taken us six months to develop these new standards," Fontein said.
All stormwater will be treated on the site via a lake and weir system which separates sediments. "Grey" wastewater will be recycled and used to irrigate gardens in public areas.
Last year, Fontein visited 26 master-planned United States residential developments before agreeing on a design for the Orewa project which is based on Seaside, a planned town in Florida used as the setting for Hollywood movie The Truman Show.
The first houses in the development are almost finished and houses planned for a hill site will be marketed this week.
The first houses at the park sold for $599,000, but Fontein said the eco-friendly places were fetching a premium $698,000. Apartments on the site, which was formerly a camping ground, start from $450,000. Fontein is expecting more than $1 million for the hill houses.
Power Savers
The eco-friendly homes have:
* Insulated floor slabs.
* Water heating solar panels on each roof.
* Double-glazed windows.
* Low-energy heat pumps.
