Electricity Act a travesty of natural justice claims DEUN

Electricity Act a travesty of natural justice - column by Molly Melhuish - Domestic Energy Users Network

"The Electricity Industry Bill is a travesty of natural justice. It excludes domestic consumers, who pay nearly half the electricity industry revenues, from any role in the Electricity Authority that is to govern the industry.

This Bill is more brash than Brash. Its neoliberal philosophy comes directly from the Commerce Act 1986 and State Owned Enterprises Act 1986.
The vision of those laws is that industry maximizes its profits and regulates itself. The consumer is protected only by whatever competition may emerge."
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Solar energy - check out your house's potential

Solarview, a free web-based tool from NIWA, helps you get the most out of your house.
NIWA have designed and built a do-it-yourself tool that tells you how much sunlight your home receives at different times of the year. This helps you work out whether solar power is a viable option for your energy needs.
All you need to tell the web-based tool is your address, which direction your roof faces, and what the angle of your roof is. The software already knows the terrain around your home and factors any hills and valleys into the data.
NIWA's system uses Google Maps to find your latitude and longitude based on the address of your home. It combines this with topographical data and many years of climate data from the climate stations throughout New Zealand to give a month-by-month calculation of how much available solar energy will hit your roof throughout the year.
This bright idea was created by NIWA scientist Ben Liley. He sees that for people to make solar power work for them, they need good information that is specific to their situation.
A homeowner, or their solar energy specialist, can use this information to determine what savings installation of solar panels or solar water heating would be likely to give. The tool can also help determine which part of a roof is best for solar energy given the unique surroundings and situation of the home.
On average, New Zealand receives about 2000 hours of bright sunshine each year. In energy terms, New Zealand's solar energy resource is about four kilowatt hours per square metre, per day. To put that into perspective, if every New Zealand home had a three kilowatt solar panel array, they would collectively generate enough power in a year to satisfy over a quarter of New Zealand's annual residential electricity needs.
Solar radiation is an abundant energy source which is free, non-polluting, and renewable. In New Zealand, many homes are exposed to 20 to 30 times more energy from the sun annually than they use in electricity or gas, but this energy source isn’t often made use of. A well designed and installed solar water heating system will heat 50 -75% of your hot water every year.
To find out more visit:
http://www.niwa.solarview.co.nz/
http://www.eeca.govt.nz/efficient-and-renewable-energy/renewable-energy/solar-energy-in-nz

Fair Electricity Bill? Your feedback wanted

DEUN is running a poll on its website www.issues.co.nz/fairelectricity and wants to know:  "What was your highest monthly power bill this winter, and what was your main heating source?"
DEUN is particularly keen to get some data from rural households.
DEUN is also keen to find whether dial-up is an obstacle to reaching the issues website. Please let DEUN know in the comment box on the website if it took a particularly long time to access the site.