Following on from the Government Policy Statement on Electricity, which talked up the role of households in the energy system and the importance of affordability, comes more welcome news that the Government plans to overhaul over 400 outdated standards for rooftop solar and EV charger installs.

According to The Post (paywalled), the work aims to align standards to much more advanced markets like Australia and other major trading partners. The Government will also open consultation on increasing the voltage range so homes and businesses can sell more power back to the grid without having to invest in costly upgrades.

Reducing regulatory barriers and cutting through red tape to deliver affordable and secure electricity is a key part of our plan to rebuild the economy and double New Zealand's supply of renewable electricity,” said Energy Minister Simeon Brown.

As Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says: "This is a huge win for the customers of New Zealand’s energy system. When we, at Forest Lodge Orchard, started on our solar and battery journey in 2020 I was very surprised by how antiquated the rules were. Today we get the change we need to help bring down costs and rapidly accelerate the adoption of solar and batteries."

"The focus for red tape cutting has largely been on getting big things built faster and we agree that's essential when it comes to renewables, but Rewiring Aotearoa is always fighting for the customer and we believe a lot of the electricity we need could come from our rooftops, so it’s good to see a long overdue focus on cutting red tape for them."

New Zealand installations are significantly more expensive than Australian installs and that’s in part due to additional compliance costs. As Saul Griffith mentioned in his interview with Kathryn Ryan on RNZ, Australia allows solar installs to be signed off via a mobile app almost instantly (with many workers trained specifically to install solar), whereas California has a 90 day process that means a high number of sales don't go through.

What we need now, says Casey, is a pilot project to show the kind of savings that are possible when households electrify, and how solar and batteries can play a role in reducing peaks.

Germany provides a good example at both a small and large scale to show that if you simplify permitting and loosen restrictions, you get a lot more renewable energy supply - and quickly.

In Bloomberg, Marilen Martin and Akshat Rathi wrote about Germany’s forced shift away from Russian gas after the invasion of Ukraine and the rise of solar, wind and LNG infrastructure.

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“Solar and wind projects across Europe had at the time been stymied by bureaucracy. The time it took to get permits had doubled since 2017. In Germany, securing approvals for one 2022 project to erect three wind turbines required 36,000 pages of documentation printed out and handed to the authorities. Since then, German red tape has been drastically reduced, according to interviews with renewable-energy executives. In just over two years, the country is now deploying more renewables than any other European peer.”

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In German homes, as The New York Times reported, “plug-and-play solar panels are popping up in yards and on balcony railings across Germany, driven by bargain prices and looser regulations” [the right to solar has even been written into law].

‍More than 550,000 of them have been installed and while they only produce enough power to run a fridge or laptop, together they are producing a significant amount of energy.

"We're confident the language now being used by the Government shows that customers are starting to be seen as a crucial part of our 21st century energy infrastructure," says Casey.