Gt Barrier Island a study in solar

Solar power is par for the course on Great Barrier Island. Photo: supplied

In June this year cyclone strength winds battered the Auckland region overnight and brought down much of the urban infrastructure. More than 85,000 houses lost mains electricity: heat, hot water and cooking facilities. Foodstuffs festered in defunct freezers, traffic lights died and reduced commuter traffic to a cautious crawl, computers became useless and panic buying stripped supermarket shelves. Civil defence officials fretted about declaring a state of emergency while power line workers were still struggling, two days later, to reconnect some suburbs.

But 86 kilometres to the east, Great Barrier Island sustained the same battering. Almost every road on the island was washed out and the network of DOC tracks which weave round the convoluted coastline and mountainous hinterland were decimated but nobody lost power, food stayed frozen and some people rejoiced at the job opportunities that repair work would bring to the island. Afterwards they took to chainsaws and shovels to clean their island up.

Despite it's proximity to Auckland, Great Barrier is one of the most remote locations in the country. Those 86 km traverse the frequently turbulent Colville Channel which has imbued island residents with hardy self reliance and a pride in their independence. Unlike Stewart Island, where mains power is reticulated from a diesel generating plant, every household on Great Barrier provides it's own power.

"It's part of the Barrier's tradition of independence and ingenuity," Murray Willis who has installed many of the sustainable energy solutions, says.

Äbout 500 households on the island are completely self sufficient in energy - using either solar, wind or water power," he added. Ï've installed about 350 of those."
Many of those systems were installed under the auspices of the Rural Electrical Reticulation Council, a 1987 government initiative which used .1% from every unit of electricity bought in New Zealand to subsidise power supplies to remote areas.
"Ït was great," he smiled, "we were putting power on for people who had only ever used candles or kerosene lamps and wood fires for cooking. Old ladies who had never had electricity - they would turn the switch on - and their faces would be awestruck. They couldn't stop grinning....they would go away....then come back and switch it on again to make sure it was still working."

A subsequent government wiped the scheme so the islanders were back on their own - manufacturing their own energy generating systems. Wind generators which were locally made from washing machine motors and scrap car wheel hubs, with propellers made of aluminium pipe in the 1070's are still in use.

Later on, Great Barrier people were canvassed to find out how many of them would use mains reticulated electricity from the mainland if it was made available - and 98% of them voted to stand alone.

"Why change? - we're years ahead of the rest of the country," Willis explained.
DOC's island headquarters have been sustainably powered for years and all the emergency services, including police and Great Barrier Maritime Radio are solar powered. Willis proudly points to the success of Aotea FM. "We're the only place in the world with a solar powered FM radio station," he says. The delightfully quirky community broadcaster features, among others; Adam from Okupu, Nikki of Angels Love of Horses and Henry's Happy Hour over 94.6 and 104 mHz frequencies.

"Renewable energy systems are always compared, in price and reliability, with mains power - so they have to work properly," Willis said.

"You have to consider the power system as an integral part of the building. The battery capacity is the heart of the system so always use the best quality you can afford."
He and wife Jan installed a solar and wind powered system at their Whangaparapara cottage 25 years ago and used it to run the power tools needed to build their adjacent house. "We've got a diesel generator as back up - I start it once a month to make sure it still works - but we haven't used it in years."

Summer weather has been getting wetter, he says, so he also installed a Pelton wheel generator in a nearby creek.

"Fridges and lights are the only components made to run off sustainable power," he says.

"Water heating is a big power user - we used a wetback off the wood stove - but we don't run heat pumps, underfloor heaters, heated towel rails and haven't got a heated pool. But so what - they're a small price to pay for being self reliant."

"In power supply terms, Great Barrier is already where the rest of the western world is struggling trying to achieve."