The latest seasonal climate outlook from the NIWA National Climate Centre states that “a moderate to strong La Niña in the tropical Pacific is expected to persist through the summer of 2010/11”.

They are silent, produce no emissions when operating and create electricity - they are photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. NIWA Nelson has just installed 56 Jiawei 185W solar modules onto its rooftop to generate electricity.

Back in April 2007, the  Pōhatuiri Marae Trust decided to rebuild there marae near Waitomo. The trust approached NIWA about renewable energy solutions for providing electricity. We asked “electricity for what?”, and so began an interesting learning process. A particularly relevant observation was the older (and often more self reliant) solutions to energy, waste management and water, should not be over-looked.

"It’s not rocket science, says Niwa’s Rupert Craggs.  Recently he and a few others demonstrated how easy it is to produce electricity from the biogas that comes off farm effluent ponds, using a converted generator.
“We plugged in two fan heaters, three spotlights and a 3 phase motor – and they ran for over two hours.  At full throttle it generates 13kW, we were running it at nine or ten.”
Such technology is not novel, he says.  “Most large domestic wastewater treatment plants capture biogas.  For example, they do it here in Hamilton and

World’s largest wastewater algae to bio-crude oil demonstration puts CO2 to good use.

A world leading research project demonstrating wastewater conversion to bio-oil.

NIWA and IBM today announced a multi-million dollar partnership where NIWA will purchase one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers for use in environmental forecasting.