These notes are from a “Restoring a Kind Climate” workshop held on the evening of 27 June 2019 at the Christchurch City Council building.
The purpose of the workshop was to provide community input into the Climate Smart Strategy review 2019, in particular to suggest practical pathways for achieving climate change mitigation goals and targets for the city. The notes are for one of the 8 topics discussed that evening.
Christchurch has 4 main renewable energy options:
- Solar
- Wind
- Biofuels
- Hydro
Solar
- PV provides distributed power option and potentially resilience in emergencies
- Incentives needed to increase use
- Net metering where as much is paid for power exported to the network as is for imported power subsidise
- Or rather than selling power back to retailers neighbourhoods could share power
- Community energy initiatives, communities off the grid rather than individuals, sharing batteries
- Loans to fund PV and solar hot water installation
- And/or CCC bulk buying and economies of scale would lower costs for installation
- PV and solar hot water could be required on all new homes
- Avoid letting the sunk costs of power generating monopolies counter incentives
- Median strips become solar farms
- Power storage – reuse old EV batteries in homes
Wind
- Create ‘zones’ for wind farms on Banks Peninsula in 5 year plan (not Port Hills skyline)
- Avoid NIMBYs preventing the building of windfarms everywhere
- Banks Peninsula has best resource in Chch, better than anywhere on the Plains
Hydro
- Not much opportunity for generation as Chch level but the SI has a big resource
- Solar/wind as first option when available, conserve hydro as a backup, i.e. use hydro lakes as batteries
Biofuels
- Transition to wood instead of coal in boilers at UoC, hospitals, schools
- Identify proven combustible waste
- Plant lots of trees
- EVs to replace petrol and diesel vehicles
CCC has a role in dispelling the myths that exist about PV and wind power components being unable to compensate for embodied energy over their life span, emphasise that recycling of components is possible
Carbon polluter pays to absorb and/or support development of renewables
Expand Yoogo car sharing
Yoogo app where you can become a juicer by charging it at your place, no need for Yoogo cars to be stationed at particular places, could be distributed like electric scooters
Support private car sharing
Smart low cost EV charging from solar panels at parking places to absorb solar peaks
Demand side – ways to use less energy
Require greater home insulation and support low energy and passive houses
Introduce efficiency standards
Incentivise resource responsible capital allocation in design, e.g. electrical supply controlled -> freed up capacity for EVs
