Four schools along the East Coast now have solar panels, battery storage, and pool heating systems as part of a $3.5 million school pool heating and resilience project funded by the Trust. What began as a plan to extend the swimming season for tamariki has grown into a community resilience kaupapa — enabling schools to stay open and support whānau during outages.

Extending the swim season — and building resilience

Initially aimed at extending the swimming season for tamariki, the project evolved to incorporate off-grid battery storage, improving electricity resilience.

With battery storage now established, schools can remain operational during power outages for at least ten days, providing essential support for remote communities where schools often serve as emergency hubs.

What's been achieved

A distributed energy kaupapa with Our Energy

The Trust partnered with Our Energy to support a distributed energy kaupapa that enables communities to share and trade locally produced clean electricity. As generation capacity grows, schools will be able to produce more energy than they use, creating opportunities to share surplus power and strengthen energy independence across their communities.

Through this approach, schools are becoming local energy hubs — improving resilience, reducing costs and demonstrating what a community-led energy future can look like for communities across Aotearoa.

National events and growing recognition

This project received the Social Procurement Award at the 2025 New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards, recognising the strong kaupapa Māori–led approach to procurement and delivery. The award acknowledges how community need, local capability and long-term regional wellbeing were placed at the centre — prioritising Māori-owned suppliers, local contractors and community energy-sharing to create lasting social and economic value.

Seven Rivers, the project delivery partner, worked alongside Trust Tairāwhiti to implement the initiative across the region, supporting schools to become resilient, community-led energy hubs.

“It’s a game changer having the heat pump powered by solar energy. We don’t have to put a time limit on when students can go swimming. The pool cover and heat pump will extend our season considerably.”

 

—  Principal, Tolaga Bay Area School, Nori Parata 

Our people

Find out more about 
Community facilities