Off grid housing community for Taupo

The New Zealand Clean Energy Centre has been investigating the feasibility of an off grid housing community in Taupo. Homes would be heated either via geothermal or biomass. Electricity would be supplied via solar and wind. Wastewater would be drip irrigated to energy crops which provide future fuel for the community. Water would be supplied via rainwater collection.

Rob McEwen, CEO of the centre, said that conversations held with visitors to the centre indicate a strong interest in the concept.

“The New Zealand public has demonstrated a keen interest in adapting their lifestyles to live in ways that are friendlier to the environment,” he said.

“They want to do their part to help maintain NZ’s 100% Pure, clean green image, they want to find ways of reducing their energy bills and they want to increase their control over energy supply security.”

The centre has launched an online survey to assess interest in the off grid community concept and also to identify workshop topics of interest to the public (the centre is hosting a monthly series of workshops during 2012). The survey can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BPP86YH.

McEwen said that of the 75 surveys completed in the first two days of research, 33 respondents indicated an interest in the off grid community concept. He said that the next steps are to further quantify the interest, then develop the concept to include drawings of the proposed community, a 3D animated walkthrough and costings.

“One of the ways to make such a community feasible is to use semirural land on the outskirts of town so that the homeowner’s investment in the land is not as high as it would be if it were urban land. Another way is to negotiate reduced development contributions with council. Unlike a typical subdivision where council needs to put in a lot of infrastructure such as water, wastewater, power reticulation and phone connections, none of those services would be required in an off grid community.”

The Clean Energy Centre believes that not only would such a community lure new residents to Taupo from elsewhere in New Zealand, but that it would have appeal to targeted international markets as well. For instance, young, affluent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have recently been scouting around the country looking for land, hoping to get out of the US, live in a community with good water resources and establish a sustainable, ‘local’ lifestyle. They would first look at English-speaking countries, which leads them to a shortlist of Canada, the UK, Australia and NZ. NZ is said to have an advantage because they are politically neutral, almost 80% of their electricity is generated from renewables, they have ample water and they are friendly to Americans.

So then the question for Taupo becomes “how can we lure them to live in our community?” McEwen believes the pitch goes something like this:

“Taupo generates 75 times more clean energy than we consume (and thanks to geothermal, that ratio is growing). We have magnificent natural beauty (think of Taupo as the Tahoe of NZ), we have world-class fibre-optic internet, we have ample water, we are central to 75% of NZ’s population, we are home to the NZ Clean Energy Centre and oh, by the way ... Taupo is developing a comprehensive off grid sustainable lifestyle community.”