Our international alliance with S2M-SKF progressed further last month when HERA Research Engineer Dr. Lei Chen visited SKF representatives in Vernon, France. The meeting was to present our latest work on turbine design and integration with SKF magnetic bearings and outline next steps in our collaborative research. HERA will be making modifications to the turbine…
HERA has recently made a decision to assist the commercialisation for a seismic damage-resistant system for modular steel structures developed by Dr. John Jing in his PhD thesis. He’s received this opportunity through a HERA research scholarship fund, starting his PhD study in 2009. Supervised by Prof Charles Clifton, he has developed a base isolation…
Firstly, I would like to thank the members for voting me onto the HERA Executive for a third term, and secondly a ‘Thank you’ to the HERA Executive for endorsing me as Chairman of our industry-owned research association. Being on the Executive since 2010 and having served as Deputy Chairman in the last three years…
Congratulations to the first SCNZ inaugural ‘Apprentice of the Year Award’ recipient Red Steel’s Thomas Forbes! Red Steel is valued member of ours and steel fabricator company so it was great to see one of their staff members take out this apprentice award. The Award was announced during a gala dinner following SCNZ’s AGM and conference…
The city of Christchurch will host the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) Congress in September 2020. The prestigious five-day event, to be held at the new Convention Centre, is expected to attract 550 delegates from around the world, with an estimated economic benefit of $1.2 million for Christchurch. The bid was put…
The New Zealand Geothermal Association Board met earlier this month to discuss the future direction of our geothermal industry. Dr. Boaz Habib, Senior Research Engineer, HERA also attended this meeting as NZGA board member. The board meeting was hosted at Te Puia in Rotorua by Te Puia General Manager, Mr Taparoto Nicholson. NZGA is reviewing…
Our AGGAT engineers Dr. Lei Chen and Dr. Haiam Abbas attended and presented at the recently held third consecutive Engine Organic Rankine Cycle Consortium (EORCC) workshop 2016 in Belfast, North Ireland. The conference attracted more than 100 representatives both from university and industry sectors of the Organic Rankine Cycle technology, 44 researchers, including four keynote…
Our Industry Development team have recently returned from a very busy three days in Nelson to attend the New Zealand Aquaculture conference from the 27 to 29 September – a key step in our goal to drive business opportunities for our members in the ocean engineering space. Attended by a number of key players and…
HERA and the Pressure Equipment Workshop organising committee invite the pressure equipment community to the Second New Zealand Pressure Equipment Workshop 2016. The workshop is seen as benefiting designers, fabricators, inspectors, vendors, regulators, owners and operators. The goals for the workshop are: Sharing technical information, innovation and practical experiences Provide guidance and feedback; for the…
Representatives of the geothermal industry from all over New Zealand met in Auckland this month to discuss recent international geothermal marketing initiatives – as part of Geothermal NZ Inc’s meeting convened by Dr. Mike Allen. This was a great opportunity to understand what future business opportunities are out there for our members – particularly in…
Working with Advance Boiler Services (ABS) in Hamilton over the past few months to design and develop a test rig – we’re pleased to say we’re on the verge of a major step towards energy technology development. This test rig will allow testing of individual components such as heat exchangers and expander type devices in…
In May, I wrote an article ‘Preparing Our Industry for Disruption’. Going one step further – what are the specific opportunities for our industry to not just respond to disruption but to initiate disruption and reap the benefits ourselves? I recently read an External Research Report by BRANZ titled When Did Disruption Become a Good…