Camp Glenorchy

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 solar garden

The challenge

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.

The result

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.

Ailsa Carroll, Sustainability Coordinator

Camp Glenorchy monitoring system

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:

Camp Glenorchy monitoring system

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 guest app controls