Christchurch engineers take out two top national awards
November 2008
When it comes to engineering Christchurch is tops as local engineers took out the engineering innovator and sustainability and clean category awards at 2008 New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards at TE PAPA in Wellington last night.
A Christchurch project that converts methane gas emissions from the recently closed Burwood Landfall into gas that is piped to heat QE2’s sports complex won the sustainability and clean technology award and a Christchurch company who developed a home heating and power generator in high demand by international markets won the Innovator of the Year Award.
The engineering team from Beca and Christchurch City Council designed this sustainable project by converting waste product from the Burwood Landfill, reducing damaging greenhouse gases and turning them into a viable resource that heats and creates hot water for Christchurch’s popular QE2 sports centre.
The Christchurch engineering team of Don Clucas, Len Damiano, Murray Aitken and Vinod Kumar from Whisper Tech Ltd won the Engineering Innovator award with their micro-combined heat and power Whispergen generator that is hot demand with overseas markets.
The Burwood Landfill scheme the first of its type in New Zealand has significantly reduced carbon emissions for the landfill, earning over $3 million dollars in Kyoto protocol carbon credits in its first five years of operation.
“The project team developed revolutionary green heating g schemes that has saved the Christchurch City Council over $1 million dollars in fossil fuel costs, with an expected 15 to 20 year lifespan, it is set to become a significant contributor to the local economy”, said David Elms, Convenor of the Category Awards judging panel.
The WhisperGen unit runs on natural gas and it delivers heat in a similar manner to a conventional water boiler, but can also generate a large proportion of the home's electricity needs. Surplus electricity generated can be sold back to the electricity retailer.
Convenor for the NZEE Individual Awards judging panel Steve Gentry said underpinning the commercial development, the WhisperTech engineering team has amassed an impressive list of 64 patents in 26 countries and have now sold over 1,000 Whisper units in to European homes heating market and are now preparing for large scale manufacture.”
The fourth New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.
The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers of New Zealand (ACENZ) and the Institution of Professional Engineers of New Zealand (IPENZ.)
For more information contact:
Chief Executive, IPENZ, Engineers New Zealand.
Mobile: 021 311 879
DDI: 04 474 8935
Prepared by Julie Buchanan, Communications Manager, IPENZ, Engineers NZ,
Mobile: 021 479 885, DDI: 04 473 2028