Sunergised on GBI! Building work is on the wane … … as moving day approaches – 30 November. The next time I post, we should be IN – or very close to it! Wendell gibs the bathroom. His foot is on the tray of the shower-enclosure-to-be. Glenn, the best gib-stopper in the business, and the only one on the island! Next step: he and his partner Tans will paint the house. The low wall separates the bedroom from the rest of the house, and the opening at the far end is for a wee linen closet accessed from the bathroom. A few kilometres down the road, Brett builds our septic tank. Shaun installs the solar panels on the roof. Time capsule When Ro built the solar house near the Canadian border, we and some friends etched messages in the concrete floor to be found by who knows who, who knows when! Now we took the idea a big jump forward and had fun putting together a time capsule of items of all sorts – info of local note, bits and pieces about life in New Zealand, remnants of our past and present and projects we’ve worked on, and some artifacts of the age – for future people to perhaps be perplexed by, to gain a glimpse of early 21st century life in New Zealand and a taste of what two sentient seniors had been up to and into in their lives. We’re going to put everything in a bag and tuck it into one of the storeroom walls before they’re insulated and lined, and then ponder an unknown future date as it’s unveiled before the surprised eyes of people our minds can’t possibly imagine! Claris solar installation What an installation it is! Starting a month ago, 250 panels have been producing 70 kW at peak solar (compared to a measly 2 kW on our house), to keep the entire Claris Centre humming soundlessly along: the Pigeon Post post and gift shop, Claris Store mini-mini-supermarket, AB Fuels (petrol, diesel, LPG etc), the laundromat and the now-vacant dentist’s office. The panels are joined together in strings, half ground mounted and half on the roof. Each string has an inverter converting the beautiful incoming sunshine to DC and directing it to the load. The panels continue to the right of the photo. Within the two cabinets on the right are 16 of the latest Tesla lithium ion batteries, 48V each, with a total 180 kWh storage. The larger cabinet holds the main inverter, with over 33 times the potential output of ours, allowing 100kW of power to be used simultaneously. Control gear monitors the load and regulates the batteries. When the power held in the batteries drops too low (the discharge level), one of three backup generators springs into action until there’s been enough sunshine to return to solar output. The whole system is worth over half a million NZ dollars, the batteries alone nearly $150,000. Luckily Sean McCarthy, owner of the Claris Centre, didn’t have to buy the system, insure it or, in theory, maintain it. He just pays for the power used. But Sunergise, who installed the system, is based in Fiji, so in reality Sean has to keep a close eye on it and contact a local electrical engineer to sort out problems. Online portals inform him 24/7 of the discharge levels of the batteries and any issues in need of attention. Sean gave us a wee tour of the hidden guts of the system, contained in a shed near the batteries along with two of the largest generators I’ve ever seen, though he said they’re relatively tiny! (The shed was too cramped to photograph anything but a small square of the wall of the generators!) The control cabinet is like a switchboard maintaining communication between all the components. The electronic readouts in this cabinet are relayed to Sunergise. While the other gear monitors the system, the indicator lights in this cabinet show at a glance the status of the components and their interactions. Here's what's going on behind the lights. Sean’s risk was entering into a ten-year contract, but his gain was to support green technology. He’s keen to be a trailblazer for other large commercial solar installations on the island. On a more mundane level, he’d had it with running generators day and night year round, and their inevitable headaches and ensuing dramas. Sometimes parts and labour couldn’t be organised and the shop owners each had to run their own small generators. He says it's a great relief to be far less reliant on machines, their breakdowns, and the price and availability of fuel. The shop owners are now paying less for more reliable power, so they’re happy too! Sunergise has done many other solar power systems around Oceania. The Claris Centre's is their smallest; their largest, on Vanuatu, has 3500 panels! For photos of other mega solar arrays, see www.sunergisegroup.com. The vacant dentist’s office – islanders are chewing very carefully these days! When we shifted here we found it amusing that the Barrier dentist, Robert, was one of the most qualified in New Zealand, a former professor at the Otago University school of dentistry, with a PhD in dentistry! Alas he began spending more time with family in the UK than here and finally retired altogether. The medical centre and related trusts haven’t found a replacement, so if you know of a dentist who’d like to be welcomed with open arms into a part-time practice with a quiet lifestyle on a beautiful subtropical island, please let me know. As it is, if islanders need a dentist they gotta make an expensive day of it, with an appointment with Airport Dental in Auckland! Since Robert left, we’ve been biting into guavas more hesitantly than ever before! The Barrier does its bit to change the government The election results for the Barrier, where 400 people voted, were more evidence that we’d come to the right place! The total vote for Greens plus Labour was more than the vote for National at all four polling places, by far at Claris and Tryphena, and especially at Port Fitzroy, where the Nats got 4 and Greens plus Labour totalled 30. Imagine if this were the nationwide outcome! Still, especially following the Greens’ campaign fiasco, the inclusion of some of their priority areas in the negotiation outcome is cause for allowing myself the teensiest bit of hope, and I had tears in my eyes at the announcement of government roles for Green MPs in climate change, transport, women, environment, health, conservation and finance – at long last! Some of the Greens policy gains are climate action focused on transport, energy and primary industries, humanising the welfare system, eliminating the gender pay gap in the public service, substantial funding increases for conservation, water quality, mental health, special needs children, tertiary students and reunification of refugee families, and a referendum on legalising personal use of cannabis. A bit more heart in this government, it seems. Time will tell what is actually achieved. Barracking Someone said to me, “I’ll be barracking for you.” How would you respond to that? I said, “What do you mean?” She told me; I was relieved! Later I found that, sure enough, barrack is in the Australian National Dictionary: "verb, usually followed by for, to cheer, shout encouragement at, give strong support to (especially a sporting team one favours, or a cause, a person, etc.)." Addicted to fishing If and only if you can’t get enough of all things fishing, then this is for you, especially if you’d like to see offshore island scenery and meet Travis (below), an island fishing legend, our neighbour down the road, a grandson of Winnie and Charlie, and thus a fifth- and sixth-generation Barrierite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91n7l_q-OEA Spot the surprise Look closely at this photo and you may find something that’s clear in the next one.... Counting down the updates til Paul and Mary return in February and resume photographing, here's still more captured beauty from this year's visit – before we get another several hundred! These three celebrate native trees: manuka, tree ferns and nikau.
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