Waipuna Marae

Project Goals

The project was a joint venture between the Waipuna Marae and the township of Motuti to provide electricity to pump water to the community.

Project Design

Hubands Energy installed 92 x PV-MLE265HD Mitsubishi Black Diamond Solar Panels and 92 x Enphase M215 Microinverters. The panels were mounted on an engineered purpose built grid stand located on the marae grounds. The installation took a week and was completed by a team of four.

One of the main challenges with this project was its location. The Marae is located 2.5 hours from Whangarei where Hubands Energy is based. It is extremely remote - a car ferry must be caught and there is no mobile phone reception in the region. This meant that all equipment had to be brought onsite with careful planning taking place to ensure the team didn’t have to embark on a 5 hour round trip for a forgotten item!

Project Outcome

The cost of electricity in this remote location is extremely high – up to 47c per kWh.

This community has existing socio-economic challenges, one of which is the ongoing running costs for electricity and their water supply.

This solar installation was an answer to this problem and worked to lighten the financial burden on the community.

Since the 3rd November 2014, the system has generated 50.6 MWh.