PROJECTS · TE KARAKA
Whiti ki te Ora
Community solar and battery storage at Te Karaka, Tairāwhiti
600.6 kW
SOLAR ARRAY
1.72 MWh
BATTERY STORAGE
924
PANELS ON ONE SITE
When Cyclone Gabrielle hit, about 500 Te Karaka residents spent more than 27 hours on a hillside with no power, no food and no way to call for help. Whiti ki te Ora is what the community built in response.
It is a 600.6 kW solar array, roughly 1.72 MWh of battery storage and two generators, on land beside Te Karaka Area School. The design lets the town run its own essential services when the grid goes down. This is not a solar farm sending power somewhere else. It powers the place it stands in.
The vision came from Te Aitanga a Māhaki and Willie Te Aho. Solar Options designed, supplied and installed the system. It sits in the same region as our marae solar programme across Tairāwhiti.
Built for the flood, not around it
Te Karaka floods. That is the reason the project exists, so the design had to allow for it rather than hope. Both the array and the battery sit above flood level, a direct response to what the Waipaoa did during Gabrielle.
Six weeks into the build, the weather made the case for us.
26 June 2026. Water across the paddock and along the fenceline, the array well clear of it.
The same thinking runs through the electrical design. Eight inverters instead of one large unit means a failure reduces output rather than stopping the system, and there are two generators instead of one. The whole design assumes something will eventually fail.
The system
| Array | 600.6 kW. 924 × LONGi 650 W bifacial panels, ground mounted and elevated above flood level |
| Inversion | 600.6 kW. Eight Deye 80 kW inverters, configured so a failed unit reduces output rather than stopping the system |
| Storage | 1.72 MWh of Deye battery storage, also raised above flood level |
| Backup generation | Two generators, chosen over one for redundancy |
| Scope | Designed, supplied and installed by Solar Options. Full EPC. |
| Opened | 15 July 2026, by Te Aitanga a Māhaki at Te Karaka Area School |
| Land | Made available at Te Karaka Area School by the Ministry of Education |
| Funding | Māori Climate Platform, with Toitū Tairāwhiti Builtsmart Ltd, owned by the four iwi of Tairāwhiti |
For scale
A typical school solar system in New Zealand is around 30 kW, or roughly 60 panels. Whiti ki te Ora carries 924 panels on a single site. That is about sixteen schools’ worth of modules, installed as one job in a small rural town.
From piles to panels
Piles went in through May. The frames were standing by the end of the month, and modules started going on in early June.
12 May. Driving piles for 924 panels.
26 May. Frames standing, rails going on.
6 July. Battery modules stacked and wired.
What it carries
Whiti ki te Ora is designed to power up to 200 homes, along with the services a town cannot do without:
- Te Karaka Area School
- The Police base
- Waikohu Health Centre
- The volunteer fire service
- The general store and petrol station
- The main elderly housing area
The marae planning managed retreat will be able to connect in future.
This project began with the vision of Te Aitanga a Māhaki and Willie Te Aho to strengthen the resilience of their community.
Ministry of Education, July 2026
Where it stands today
The hub opened on 15 July 2026, and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts saw it demonstrated in August. It currently runs islanded. The grid connection is not yet live, and that application sits with another party. The line to Te Karaka Area School has been dug, and the supply point and meter are in place.
Community scale solar and storage
Marae, kura, papakāinga and whole townships. We size systems for how a place is really used, we design for what happens when the grid stops, and we come back afterwards. Talk to Gerry.