Hastings, 3 Nov 16 - New Zealand, Hawke’s Bay: Etel Limited, New Zealand distribution transformer manufacturing business owned by Unison Group, has invested in an Indonesian transformer equivalent, purchasing a 90 per cent shareholding in Lucky Light Globalindo, which supplies the Indonesian market.
While a lot smaller, the Indonesian transformer plant is also seen as a hub for Unison's ambitions into other ASEAN countries, reports New Zealand Herald.
"The lifespan of their transformers is about 10 years and ours is 40 to 50 years, so we can implement technology that can increase the life of the assets from 10 years to 40 years," Unison chairman Kevin Atkinson said.
"The Indonesia government has indicated an investment of $15 billion in distribution networks over the next five years. That is what we are interested in. The distribution transformer requirement for 2015 was 2865 units, the requirement for 2016 was 31,720 and in 2026 they are estimating they will require 60,000 transformers per year," Mr. Atkinson added.
New Zealand’s top researchers have been awarded $65.2 million in Marsden Fund grants in the 2016 funding round, Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce announced today.
The $65.2 million allocation is the largest single funding round in the history of the Marsden Fund. 117 successful proposals will be funded over the next three years and they include a diverse range of topics from vaccine delivery, to youth justice, to the marine carbon cycle.
The Marsden Fund supports excellence in science, engineering, maths, social sciences and humanities by providing grants for investigator-initiated research. It is highly sought after by New Zealand scientists.
“A successful science system needs the right balance of investigator-led research, applied research, and business research and development,” Mr Joyce says. “The Marsden is our pre-eminent investigator-led research fund and is a crucial contributor to building an innovation-led economy and society.”
“Marsden Fund grants are awarded to some of our leading researchers. The Fund helps focus our science system on achieving excellence and impact, and it is an important element in promoting New Zealand as a destination for top scientists and R&D investment.
The Government has set aside $66 million over the next four years for growing the Marsden Fund as part of Budget 2016. This will increase the annual amount available for the Marsden Fund by 49 per cent over four years, growing it to $79.8 million in 2019/20.
The overall success rate for applicants is 10.7 per cent this year, compared with 7.7 per cent last year and 8.3 per cent the year before that. This increase reflects the immediate use of the $6 million provided in the 2016-17 financial year resulting from the Budget 2016 announcement.
Approved projects include:
The grants are split into two categories. The Fast-Start awards are designed to create research momentum for early-career researchers and are worth up to $300,000 over three years. Standard awards apply to all applicants and can be worth as much as $850,000 over a three-year period.
The Marsden Fund is administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand on behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
More information is available here, and in Te Reo Māori here.
Napier, 3 Nov 16 - The installation of an auger conveying system for Hawkes Bay Proteins kept a team fromNapier Engineering busy over this last Labour Weekend.
The manufacture by the NEC engineers was not without its challenges factoring in ease of access for maintenance in the future.
Time down is a major factor and has to be kept to a minimum hence HB Protein’s client being so impressed with the short time frame for installation which resulted in minimal loss of production time for the client - that all important consideration for contract manufacturers when they look at the installation or maintenance of equipment.
Napier, 3 Nov 16 - The installation of an auger conveying system for Hawkes Bay Proteins kept a team fromNapier Engineering busy over this last Labour Weekend.
The manufacture by the NEC engineers was not without its challenges factoring in ease of access for maintenance in the future.
Time down is a major factor and has to be kept to a minimum hence HB Protein’s client being so impressed with the short time frame for installation which resulted in minimal loss of production time for the client - that all important consideration for contract manufacturers when they look at the installation or maintenance of equipment.
Chorus has today encouraged customers to find out as much as possible about the wide range of broadband choices available to them before making decisions about their connections.
Chorus has given this advice in response to Spark’s announcement yesterday that it will trial aggressively moving its customers to either fibre or its own wireless broadband service in the Waikato.
The company says there are many more good choices for customers than just those two options with one provider.
“Of course we encourage as many customers as possible to get onto fibre wherever it is available, as it is unquestionably the superior service,” said Tim Harris, Chief Commercial Officer, Chorus. “The more challenging question for customers is what type of connection to choose if they are not yet ready to move to fibre.
“We strongly encourage customers to check out independent websites such as glimp.co.nz or broadbandcompare.co.nz to review the full range of products and pricing available to them, rather than relying on their service provider to tell them what’s best.
We’ve been saying for some time that many in New Zealand could upgrade their broadband for little or no extra cost and our own website, chorus.co.nz, can help identify if this is case.
Harris also said Spark’s statement yesterday contained several errors that Chorus wished to correct.
“It is Chorus’ view that Spark is selling its customers short by providing them with just two options, at the same time as dangerously misrepresenting the reliability of the copper broadband network.”
“Wireless broadband cannot match copper-based VDSL broadband for consistency of performance, reliability at peak times and the ability to have broadband without data caps.
“More than 50% of broadband connections are now unlimited, as customers come to expect to be able to use broadband without limits, and data use is growing rapidly. The uptake of unlimited plans has grown by 33% in just the last year and no fixed wireless provider is offering uncapped data plans.
Customers can check to see if VDSL is available to them at chorus.co.nz. With certain broadband providers customers can be upgraded from ADSL to VDSL for no extra monthly cost and no technician visit.
Spark’s statement also represented the Chorus copper network as having high levels of faults, due to low levels of investment. Chorus strongly refutes this claim.
- On average, a customer with a copper broadband connection is likely to experience a fault roughly once every five years, with downtime typically being less than a day
- Chorus has continued to invest in and improve the copper network, most recently expanding the VDSL footprint to 80% of lines this year
- Fault volumes have consistently declined year on year for the last 10 years
“We openly acknowledge that for a small proportion of older ADSL broadband customers that wireless broadband is likely to provide a better service, and we will openly tell customers that.
“However, it is confusing for customers to be given misleading information by service providers with their own agenda, which is why we strongly encourage customers to undertake independent research to get the very best broadband available to them. This is not necessarily the product their service provider always wants to sell them.”
A Chorus release
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242