Supporting Kiwi kids into the school pool

Te Pōhue School’s 17 students will be pleasantly surprised when they take the plunge in their school pool for the first time this swimming season.

The cool nights that typically settle over a remote settlement nestled next to the Thermal Explorer Highway between Napier and Taupō mean the temperature of the school’s pool tends to be on the chilly side, even in summer.

While that sort of water temperature is survivable, it’s not exactly fun. Which is why the school made an application to Meridian Energy’s Power Up Harapaki community fund for a grant to purchase a heat pump, and solar system to cover its running costs.

“It’s so exciting for the school,” says Geoff Smith, a local electrician who chaired the school’s board of trustees.

“We had a reasonable indoor pool, but it was always a little bit cold. The cover didn’t work and the kids were swimming in about 19-degree water. We came up with the idea to get a heat pump – and then we saw how much power that was going to use.”

The answer was “a lot” - far too much for a tiny rural school with a limited budget.

“So, we hit up Meridian and not only did they help with funding for the solar, but they also fully funded the heat pump,” says Geoff.

The Power Up Harapaki fund provides grants for projects in the communities closest to the wind farm, making the pool upgrade at Te Pōhue School an obvious choice.

“It is great that the funding is going local first and really supporting this area,” says Geoff.

“It took a long time to get the wind farm off the ground and the community had gone through that journey. Now that it’s operational, it is supporting the community, which is great.”

Thanks to the new solar system the school estimates it should be able to operate the pool at break even, or maybe even a small surplus.

“Because of the cold winters we are only going to have the pool at temperature in term one and term four, which is still 20 weeks a year. It will cost us a bit to run it in those months, but we will get a subsidy back from the solar generation from the other months from the power going back to the grid.

“We hoping it will be a zero sum. We don’t know for sure yet, but it shouldn’t cost the school to the heat the pool – and hopefully we get a little bit of credit as well which would be really nice.”

The biggest impact, says Geoff, will be increased water safety for children growing up in an area surrounded by beautiful but challenging waterways such as the Mohaka River and Lake Pōhue.

“Our goal is that all of the kids learn to swim. We’ve got a lot of water around us and unfortunately, we’ve had a few deaths on the water.”

Thanks to the pool upgrades the school’s students can now look forward to swimming lessons every afternoon over the two warmer school terms.

“Every kid, every day - which is great,” says Geoff. “That is huge for us – especially in a rural environment. We live at Te Pōhue, but I work in town and can bring my daughter in for swimming lessons. Not everyone can do that.