The Centre for Sustainability has joined forces with solarcity to establish the National Solar Laboratory (solarlab). Its mission: to conduct a comprehensive study into household solar energy usage to better inform and guide the nation towards a sustainable energy future.
solarcity’s multi-year initiative will explore how adopting photovoltaic systems (PV) and
As many previous Energy Cultures bloggers have noted, Dunedin suffers from some very energy inefficient housing which in turn causes financial and health related problems for occupants. I’m here in Dunedin for a month to do a study looking at why private landlords in the city tend not to invest in making their properties more efficient, warm
I came back from five months of research and study leave in November 2014, having spent the majority of the time in Vienna, Austria (a city of 1.8million with a much smaller footprint than Auckland). Austria is a long time member of the EU and has a climate with more extremes than New
Multidisciplinary research on energy is a hot topic internationally. I’ve recently returned from a trip overseas to give presentations and work with other research teams in England, Ireland, Germany and Norway, and I spoke with a number of research groups where they have recently started to work collaboratively across disciplines. They have huge interest in
I want to tell you a story about energy. Most of us use energy without giving it a second thought – we switch on lights, turn on the heater, fill our cars with gas – we really don’t think about it much. But this story is not about most of us – it is about
Energy Cultures PhD student Fatima McKague has been awarded the Todd Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship in Energy Research to investigate fuel poverty in New Zealand.
Ms McKague will use the scholarship, which is worth $25,000 scholarship per annum for up to three years, to develop a new measure of
In her post, Sally Blackwell reckons that “we are beginning to appreciate the value of warm, dry homes and … we are starting to understand and embrace energy efficiency”. The widespread installation of ceiling insulation, heat pumps, ventilation systems and energy efficient lights certainly
After many years focused on creative accounting, New Zealand is facing pressure to deliver emission reduction results… click here to read this New Zealand Herald article
Sally Blackwell is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Sustainability investigating the role of ‘middle actors’ in the socio-technical transition to better performing housing. Middle actors include people such as builders, tradespeople, home performance advisors or architects and designers. Sally has a background in developing and delivering programmes to improve the performance of existing
The world it seems is falling in love with electric vehicles. While there is still a small base they are growing, both in numbers and variety. There is significant growth in electric vehicles, from small cars to big SUV’s and high performance sports cars, from electric bikes to scooters. They are also getting cheaper, and