Author Archives: Mike Hulme

SEVI: An exemplar of how electric vehicles can energise communities

Researchers from Curtin University and the University of Technology Sydney are leading a team from across the country to investigate stand out examples of strategic electric vehicle integration (SEVI) as part of the RACE for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). The project has selected the Witchcliffe Ecovillage as a world ...

What 2025 holds for the WEV founders

Almost five gruelling years after starting construction in February 2020, Michelle and I are ready to start stepping back from full time work in the WEV office.  This is being made possible due to our fantastic Admin team, Karen & Michelle, book keeper, June, and the appointment of a new, ...

Founders build to start in January

Almost 5 years after starting construction of the Ecovillage, in February 2020 (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) we are finally about to start construction of our home.  Our sand pad has gone down and we start construction in late January.  There’s been almost as many iterations of our ...

Water for Life

Some of you will remember my last newsletter article on Ecovillage Water in May ’24, after the driest seven months on record where we only received 40mm of rain at the Ecovillage. I stated in this article that historically, very dry summers are often followed by wetter than average winters, ...

Currumbin Ecovillage visit

Shelle and I had a wonderful working holiday in the Northern Rivers Region of NSW during the second half of August. It’s become an annual trip since our daughter, Amala, moved there 4yrs ago. We’ve fortunately been able to combine each trip with some consulting work there, including being the ...

Energy update: annual returns for majority

Witchcliffe Ecovillage, 2024 The Ecovillage continues to use 100% renewable energy, exports over three times more renewable energy than it consumes, and is very close to being completely self-sufficient in renewable energy from onsite solar and battery. It’s been a wonderful year on the energy front in the Ecovillage with ...

Thermy Permies: Investigating the Thermal Performance of Ecovillage Homes

Photo: Markus Winkler We had a lot of fun doing the first survey of how well our homes are performing during a 38C day in February, towards the end of a week-long heat wave! We have assembled an awesome team of Ecovillage volunteers for this task, all but me with ...

Water update – rainwater, dam water levels and usage

What a relief to finally receive good rainfall over the past couple of weeks, after the hottest and driest summer on record! Over the seven months from October 23 to April 24, we only received 40mm of rain at the Ecovillage–this is completely unheard of in our region, which usually ...

Ecovillage founders are getting ready to start building their Ecovillage home!

Michelle and I are very excited to confirm that we’ve finally started site preparations for our new Ecovillage home! We’ve only just felt like we’ve got the headspace for it after the huge amount of work over the past four years of building the Ecovillage. We’ve spent a lot of ...