Placemakers Dunedin part of solar upgrade programme
Placemakers Dunedin, in Burns St, is among 20 buildings across the country selected for the installation of more than 8000 solar panels in total.
It is part of a rooftop solar retrofit programme FortHill Property, an industrial investment fund established by Otago-founded construction company Calder Stewart, will roll out across its entire portfolio.
General manager Nick Maier said work on Placemakers Dunedin was expected to take place next year.
"The type of system you'd expect at a building of that size would be between 25kW and 50kW.
"That could be anywhere from 75 to 150 panels, just depending on the final design and the panels you select."
The business estimated the programme would provide a potential generation capacity of more than 4 million kWh per year.
It announced yesterday it had launched a $50 million capital raise from its $432m national industrial property fund to expand its portfolio across Otago, Christchurch and Auckland.
Placemakers Dunedin was currently FortHill Property's only asset in Otago and they were "very excited" to be coming back into the market again, Mr Maier said.
"The interest rate cycle is right, the property cycle, we think, is good timing — we are really keen to attract investment.
"Often it's out of the business, off-farm, intergenerational family kind of activity.
"We're really proud of our kind of unique connection with Calder Stewart, which was originally founded in Milton, and the ability to grow what is now a national-scale investment fund originally started from those kind of humble beginnings."
It typically looked at investments anywhere between $5m and $50m, with a focus on industrial sheds, Mr Maier said.
"What we can find, where we can find it — if it meets our criteria, then we get straight into it."
While their preference was to target the capital raise towards the funding of new buildings, the extent to which that went towards any of its wider green initiatives was case by case dependent, he said.
FortHill had also partnered with ASB and New Zealand tech firm Tether to install AI-powered energy monitoring systems in 13 industrial facilities as part of a year-long pilot designed to identify energy usage patterns and reduce tenants' operating costs by up to 30%.
tim.scott@odt.co.nz
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Techday NZ
2 days ago
- Techday NZ
Sensitive data exposure rises with employee use of GenAI tools
Harmonic Security has released its quarterly analysis finding that a significant proportion of data shared with Generative AI (GenAI) tools and AI-enabled SaaS applications by employees contains sensitive information. The analysis was conducted on a dataset comprising 1 million prompts and 20,000 files submitted to 300 GenAI tools and AI-enabled SaaS applications between April and June. According to the findings, 22% of files (total 4,400) and 4.37% of prompts (total 43,700) included sensitive data. The categories of sensitive data encompassed source code, access credentials, proprietary algorithms, merger and acquisition (M&A) documents, customer or employee records, and internal financial information. Use of new GenAI tools The data highlights that in the second quarter alone, organisations on average saw employees begin using 23 previously unreported GenAI tools. This expanding variety of tools increases the administrative load on security teams, who are required to vet each tool to ensure it meets security standards. A notable proportion of AI tool use occurs through personal accounts, which may be unsanctioned or lack sufficient safeguards. Almost half (47.42%) of sensitive uploads to Perplexity were made via standard, non-enterprise accounts. The numbers were lower for other platforms, with 26.3% of sensitive data entering ChatGPT through personal accounts, and just 15% for Google Gemini. Data exposure by platform Analysis of sensitive prompts identified ChatGPT as the most common origin point in Q2, accounting for 72.6%, followed by Microsoft Copilot with 13.7%, Google Gemini at 5.0%, Claude at 2.5%, Poe at 2.1%, and Perplexity at 1.8%. Code leakage represented the most prevalent form of sensitive data exposure, particularly within ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, and Baidu Chat. File uploads and risks The report found that, on average, organisations uploaded 1.32GB of files in the second quarter, with PDFs making up approximately half of all uploads. Of these files, 21.86% contained sensitive data. The concentration of sensitive information was higher in files compared to prompts. For example, files accounted for 79.7% of all stored credit card exposure incidents, 75.3% of customer profile leaks, and 68.8% of employee personally identifiable information (PII) incidents. Files accounted for 52.6% of exposure volume related to financial projections. Less visible sources of risk GenAI risk does not only arise from well-known chatbots. Increasingly, regular SaaS tools that integrate large language models (LLMs) - often without clear labelling as GenAI - are becoming sources of risk as they access and process sensitive information. Canva was reportedly used for documents containing legal strategy, M&A planning, and client data. Replit and were involved with proprietary code and access keys, while Grammarly and Quillbot edited contracts, client emails, and internal legal content. International exposure Use of Chinese GenAI applications was cited as a concern. The study found that 7.95% of employees in the average enterprise engaged with a Chinese GenAI tool, leading to 535 distinct sensitive exposure incidents. Within these, 32.8% were related to source code, access credentials, or proprietary algorithms, 18.2% involved M&A documents and investment models, 17.8% exposed customer or employee PII, and 14.4% contained internal financial data. Preventative measures "The good news for Harmonic Security customers is that this sensitive customer data, personally identifiable information (PII), and proprietary file contents never actually left any customer tenant, it was prevented from doing so. But had organizations not had browser based protection in place, sensitive information could have ended up training a model, or worse, in the hands of a foreign state. AI is now embedded in the very tools employees rely on every day and in many cases, employees have little knowledge they are exposing business data." Harmonic Security Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Alastair Paterson made this statement, referencing the protections offered to their customers and the wider risks posed by the pervasive nature of embedded AI within workplace tools. Harmonic Security advises enterprises to seek visibility into all tool usage – including tools available on free tiers and those with embedded AI – to monitor the types of data being entered into GenAI systems and to enforce context-aware controls at the data level. The recent analysis utilised the Harmonic Security Browser Extension, which records usage across SaaS and GenAI platforms and sanitises the information for aggregate study. Only anonymised and aggregated data from customer environments was used in the analysis.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Shotover Jet marks 60th birthday
One of the country's most well-known tourism ventures is marking a major milestone today. Ngai Tahu Tourism say the Shotover Jet's 60th birthday is more than a commercial success story, it's the celebration of a major turning point for the iwi - a story of mana whenua taking the wheel. Otago Southland Reporter Katie Todd explains. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Amazon profits surge 35% as AI investments drive growth
By AFP Despite the stellar results, investors seemed worried about Amazon's big cash outlays to pursue its AI ambitions. Photo: 123RF Amazon has reported a 35 percent jump in quarterly profits as the e-commerce giant says major investments in artificial intelligence has been paying off. The Seattle-based company posted net profit of $18.2 billion (NZ$30.9 billion) for the second quarter that ended June 30, compared with $13.5 billion (NZ$22.9 billion) in the same period last year. Net sales climbed 13 percent to $167.7 billion (NZ$284.7 billion), beating analyst expectations and signalling that the global company was surviving the impacts of the high-tariff trade policy under US President Donald Trump. "Our conviction that AI will change every customer experience is starting to play out," chief executive Andy Jassy said, pointing to the company's expanded Alexa+ service and new AI shopping agents. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company's world leading cloud computing division, led the charge with sales jumping 17.5 percent to $30.9 billion (NZ$52.45 billion). The unit's operating profit rose to $10.2 billion (NZ$17.3 billion) from $9.3 billion (NZ$15.8 billion) a year earlier. The strong AWS performance reflects surging demand for cloud infrastructure to power AI applications, a trend that has benefited major cloud providers as companies race to adopt generative AI technologies. Despite the stellar results, investors seemed worried about Amazon's big cash outlays to pursue its AI ambitions, sending its share price more than three percent lower in after-hours trading. The company's free cash flow declined sharply to $18.2 billion (NZ$30.9 billion) for the trailing 12 months, down from $53 billion (NZ$90 billion) in the same period last year, as Amazon ramped up capital spending on AI infrastructure and logistics. The company spent $32.2 billion (NZ$54.7 billion) on property and equipment in the quarter, nearly double the $17.6 billion (NZ$29.9 billion) spent a year earlier, reflecting massive investments in data centres and backroom capabilities. Amazon has pledged to spend up to $100 billion (NZ$169.8 billion) this year, largely on AI-related investments for AWS. For the current quarter, Amazon forecast net sales between $174.0 billion (NZ$295 billion) and $179.5 billion (NZ$304.8 billion), representing solid growth of 10-13 percent compared with the third quarter of 2024. Operating profit was expected to range from $15.5 billion (NZ$26.3 billion) to $20.5 billion (NZ$34.8 billion) in the current third quarter, which was lower than some had hoped for and likely also a factor in investor disappointment. - AFP
