Come for the beauty, come away empowered Camp Glenorchy is New Zealand’s first Net Zero
Energy accommodation, which
means the site will, on average, generate as much energy as it uses. To achieve this ambitious goal,
visitors that stay here need to be informed of the effects they are having on the local environment
over the course of their stay, so they can help minimize their impact. Camp Glenorchy goes out of its way to make this as easy as possible for its guests by monitoring
many aspects of every room on the site, such as temperature, humidity, and even if windows are open
or shut. Those measurements drive a sophisticated environment control system that automatically
maximizes energy savings while keeping guests comfortable. Camp Glenorchy also provides a tablet
device for each guest room that shows what the current environment is as well as allowing them to
control things like the room temperature. Camp Glenorchy needed a way to capture the data coming from the hundreds of sensors deployed
throughout the site, and leverage it in all aspects of its business including the site’s website,
the guest tablet application, internal operational support applications, and supporting the Net Zero
Energy certification process. Camp Glenorchy deployed SolarNode devices to capture data into SolarNetwork from all the various
sensors, controls, and weather stations installed in the buildings throughout the site. SolarNode
was a good fit as it can easily integrate with different devices from different manufacturers and
can easily adapt in the future as new sensors are added. SolarNetwork’s tools enabled Camp Glenorchy to record diverse performance metrics over time, allow
easy insight into that data record, and integrate our live status into other custom platforms. They
continue to develop and improve the functionality of SolarNetwork tools — increasing the value of
our existing infrastructure, and future proofing it. As part of the Living Building Challenge
certification process we had to submit a full 12 months of metering data, this would not have been
possible without SolarNetwork. Using innovative technology in a remote location also comes with its own set of challenges, but the
ease of insight into our data that SolarNetwork enables has sped up our commissioning and
troubleshooting process, and we also continue to improve our systems as that data set grows. SolarNetwork’s vision of open source computing and open access to data has enabled us to also begin
fulfilling our goals of sharing our learnings and broadening our impact. We have been able to
integrate their tools with our building management and automation system to increase the
responsiveness of our site to the changing environment, guests, and events to continue to meet and
exceed our expectations and sustainability goals. The SolarNetwork API made it easy for Camp Glenorchy to then query the data and integrate meaningful
information into key aspects of the business, such as an operational support dashboard: The same data also feeds into a tablet based app developed for guest rooms, that allows
guests to learn about not only the general sustainability aspects of Camp Glenorchy, but
their individual impact on the site. Then the app gives guests the ability to control their use of
site resources such as energy and water by adjusting the temperature of their room or length of
their shower.Camp Glenorchy
The challenge
The result