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A Christchurch developer is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars putting a wind turbine and solar panels on the roof of a new high-rise. The move does not stack up economically and it will take years for the systems to pay for themselves, but Ernest Duval is doing it anyway.  Hotel to harness wind, sun The developer of the South Island's tallest building, the 23-storey C1 hotel and apartment building in Gloucester Street, wants to reduce the complex's "stomping great environmental footprint". He believed the move would send a signal to people to start thinking differently about energy and how it could be generated.
Duval was also incorporating a heat-exchange system to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat water coming into the building. He was not sure what percentage of the building's energy the measures would supply, but Duval said it would be in the single figures. "On pure economics you wouldn't even bother. The payback is pretty long at this stage." However, if every new building in the country put in similar measures it would save a power station every year, he said. The wind turbine will not be a conventional model. It was likely to be a German-designed vertical axle turbine which would spin in an S shape a few metres above the building's roof. Duval said the design was safer than having a high-speed rotating propeller which could cause some serious damage if it became dislodged. "We are on top of a building. We can not have anything that vibrates or emits sound. It's got to be very smooth." Solar panels would also be erected on a pyramid on the roof. He said it was not possible to produce enough energy for the entire complex, because it had only a small roof space. The solar panels would probably take 20 years to pay for themselves, but the return on the heat recovery system would be much quicker. C1 could lose its title as the South Island's tallest building after it was announced last week that a 26-storey apartment tower was planned for Lichfield Street between Colombo and High streets. Construction on The Pinnacle would start next year and was due to end in 2011.
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