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First published on By Faith Jeremiah The wastewater treatment plant at Akaroa. Photo: Supplied/Christchurch City Council New Zealand is confronting a perfect storm. Its energy grid faces three pressing challenges at once: an unreliable electricity supply, strict emissions reduction targets and ongoing environmental issues related to wastewater ponds. As the country prepares to meet growing energy demands, the variability of wind, solar and hydroelectric power has made year-round electricity generation hard to ensure. Compounding the issue are New Zealand's emissions targets and avoidable emissions from wastewater treatment plants. We need immediate, practical solutions. One lies hidden within our wastewater systems. Three challenges, one solution In the search for ...

Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers Retailer Briscoe Group is investing about $120 million on the development of a large North Island warehousing and distribution centre to be operational in two years. The homewares and Rebel Sport retailer had already spent about $20m to implement a warehouse management system, including a down payment on the purchase of 30,000 square metres of land at Drury, on Auckland's southern border. "We're in a situation right now where we've outlasted the existing asset that we have," Briscoe managing director Rod Duke said, adding the return on investment was expected to quick, given the improved inventory control and distribution system. The new 20,000 square-metre facility was 2.5 times the footprint of Briscoe's existing 8000 square-metre facility and would be twice i...

New research found that 37 percent of South Asian respondents use traditional banks for remittances. Photo: RNZ / 123rf All retail banks expect to offer a confirmation of payee service to customers by Easter. The Banking Association said the service will be rolled out from the end of November, but would take time before it was fully implemented. "Due to the size and complexity of payments services the banks offer means some banks were adopting a phased approach to ensure thorough user testing and customer understanding," association chief executive Roger Beaumont said. "For customers, this means confirmation of payee might not be available across all online banking platforms simultaneously," Beaumont said. "They might find that a confirmation of payee check is available from some banks ...

Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone Auckland Airport's $200 million offer to retail shareholders has been oversubscribed by more than 10 percent. The offer of shares at $6.95 a piece was part of Auckland Airport's $1.4 billion equity raising announced on 16 September. The capital raising was the largest ever in the country's markets and earmarked for Auckland's long awaited new domestic jet terminal building, to be joined to the existing international airport. The airport company said the money should be enough to complete all its development projects, while maintaining its credit rating and dividend policy. The institutional offer of $1.2b of new shares was fully underwritten, with $223m worth of applications for the retail portion of the capital raising. Eligible retail shareholders were all...

The official cash rate has fallen, but how quickly can that lead to a rising economy? File photo. Photo: RNZ A Reserve Bank decision to cut the official cash rate by 50 basis points might be good news for home loan borrowers but it is likely to be months before it has a real impact on the economy. The OCR has been cut to 4.75 percent. That is still above what the Reserve Bank would consider a "neutral" interest rate. Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen said the Reserve Bank "seemed to have realised" that the economy was weaker and did not require as much interest rate restraint, and that quicker cuts were needed to normalise interest rates. "A clear, if only implied, admission that the Reserve Bank may have been too slow to act. It still could be too far behind, if inflation is a...

Almost 70,000 New Zealanders said they worked 60 hours a week. File photo. Photo: 123RF It's time for New Zealanders to work fewer hours, one academic says - as the Census reveals we work less than we used to. Census data shows that New Zealanders work, on average, 37.2 hours per week. That is down from 38.1 hours in 2013, and roughly the same as the last census. But 297 people said they worked 168 hours a week - that is, every hour of the day. Work is defined as for pay, profit or payment in kind, or contributing directly the operation of a business, farm or professional practice operated by a relative, including a job or business that the person was temporarily absent from. In 2018, 273 people said they worked all the time, but in 2013 it was 474. There were a total of 2.6 million peo...