about us
our People
nick Meeten
Nick is a director of Applied Energy working in the areas of Buildings/Water/Sustainability.
Nick is a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand.
His career has seen him working in New Zealand, UK, Spain, Holland, Italy and Germany.
Nick is a mechanical engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the following:
Nick’s specialty, an area in which he has built an international reputation, is using the thermal energy capacity of wastewater. “In an era of changing climates, cities all over the world are increasingly struggling to cope with heating and cooling energy demands from buildings and industries whilst at the same time reducing energy consumption. Wastewater flows are a huge resource which is largely ignored yet has been proven to allow buildings to transition away from using fossil fuels for heating and allows refrigerant based heating and cooling systems to operate up to twice as efficiently as conventional air source systems. Using this thermal resource, and the below ground infrastructure which is already there, makes really good economic and environmental sense.”
Nick is a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand.
His career has seen him working in New Zealand, UK, Spain, Holland, Italy and Germany.
Nick is a mechanical engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in the following:
- Wastewater services within urban areas – wastewater treatment and reuse, using wastewater as a source of thermal energy
- Sustainability – Cities of the future, green building design, sustainable water use
- Building services design - HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning), water services, building thermal modelling
- Project management – project scoping, project team assembly, monitoring and managing progress, chairing and managing meetings
Nick’s specialty, an area in which he has built an international reputation, is using the thermal energy capacity of wastewater. “In an era of changing climates, cities all over the world are increasingly struggling to cope with heating and cooling energy demands from buildings and industries whilst at the same time reducing energy consumption. Wastewater flows are a huge resource which is largely ignored yet has been proven to allow buildings to transition away from using fossil fuels for heating and allows refrigerant based heating and cooling systems to operate up to twice as efficiently as conventional air source systems. Using this thermal resource, and the below ground infrastructure which is already there, makes really good economic and environmental sense.”
mike bourke
After 40+ years working in the 3-Waters Realm for Christchurch City Council (CCC), Mike stopped working there in April 2022 and is (theoretically) now in semi-retirement. Applied Energy have been very fortunate to coax Mike into joining our team and this is now what he says “I am however looking forward to opportunities to share my knowledge and experience with other organisations who wish to take advantage of that experience, to improve their long term outcomes particularly in the energy and carbon footprint impacts from water operations. Our water resource will be an increasingly vital part of our future on our planet and we must take every practical step to improve our guardianship of this precious resource to protect public health and the environment for future generations.”
Mike’s experience and knowledge are massive and difficult to describe briefly. Below are a few of the major accomplishments of Mike’s career:
Mike’s experience and knowledge are massive and difficult to describe briefly. Below are a few of the major accomplishments of Mike’s career:
- Following the devastating Christchurch earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, Mike assumed the lead role for CCC in Scope and Standards for the Earthquake Rebuild efforts by the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team. This work programme rebuilt 1.38million m2 of road, 630km of sewers, 114 pumping stations, 100km of drinking water pipes, and 144 bridges! All rebuilt with a key focus on building in resilience to cope with further natural disasters through appropriate material selection and design details. The rebuild construction spend was NZ$2.2 billion.
- With Mike’s guidance, CCC established itself as a leading progressive and energy conscious local authority. Christchurch were the first city in New Zealand to implement a wastewater heat recycling project with a 3.5MW thermal load. Christchurch has undertaken heat mapping of their wastewater network and are encouraging the community to take advantage of this unused heat resource by making the heat map information freely available on-line. (Note, it was through these projects that Applied Energy built up a great working relationship with Mike, and we are now so proud to have him as a member of our team).
- Mike led the New Zealand wide, national 3-waters benchmarking for Christchurch - a powerful tool to improve asset management, customer service and efficiency of service delivery.
- As the Senior Planning Engineer for CCC, Mike was responsible for consenting/permitting of wastewater discharges, mentoring of students and junior engineers, network operations improvements to reduce leakage and reduce wet weather overflows, tender and contract review. Water supply safety improvements through well head security improvements, back flow prevention and reservoir security. Water supply pressure management to achieve lower leakage rates, less breakages, longer asset life and reduced pumping costs. Investigation of alternative energy sources from waste materials for anaerobic digestion.
- Mike was responsible for 69 water pumping or treatment sites and 8 wastewater treatment sites. He covered all staff management (50+), budgeting, financial and operational reporting, consent compliance, with close involvement for all asset renewals, improvements or new asset installations. He led projects using alternative reticulation options for wastewater (vacuum and pressure sewer) for improved resilience. He led projects implementing wastewater reuse and land application. He led the project to implement new Thermophilic Anaerobic Digester capacity, Biosolids drying using landfill gas and wood waste, a range of wastewater treatment plant improvements (clarifiers, solids contact tanks, sludge thickening) and additional electrical power generation capacity using biogas fuel.
- The list goes on…….
ina Meeten
Ina is a director of Applied Energy working in the areas of GIS/Mapping & Marketing.
She completed her degree in cartography in Berlin and then commenced her career in Switzerland with Endoxon (which was subsequently acquired by Google).
Her career has since seen her working in GIS/mapping roles, graphic design and raising three children (a complex project management role!)
She contributes her mapping wisdom to Applied Energy in the styling and layouts of mapping projects & graphic design and delivery of marketing materials.
She completed her degree in cartography in Berlin and then commenced her career in Switzerland with Endoxon (which was subsequently acquired by Google).
Her career has since seen her working in GIS/mapping roles, graphic design and raising three children (a complex project management role!)
She contributes her mapping wisdom to Applied Energy in the styling and layouts of mapping projects & graphic design and delivery of marketing materials.
our Working relationships
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At Applied Energy, we do not try to do everything. We prefer to focus on what we are passionate about. Because we are focused, we believe we offer specialist expertise which is rare, and when a project requires expertise that we do not have, we team up with others who are experts in their fields to fill these gaps. As examples, we have strong working relationships with Nxity in Asia and Nordic Heat in Sweden who are both experts in district heating systems. We are also all part of the Heat Academy network of companies. We team up with Kerr Wood Leidal in Canada and to date we have done 5 projects with them. We have a strong team relationship with GeoInsight in New Zealand who are GIS and mapping experts specializing in the local government sector. We are also very proud to be the only Southern Hemisphere company selected to be an Ambassador for the European Act!onHeat programme. Working with these people is fun and inspiring! |
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